Browsing by Author "Grubb, Henry Jefferson"

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    The cultural-distance perspective: an exploratory analysis of its effect on learning and intelligence
    Grubb, Henry Jefferson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1983)
    The stance of the present investigation is an amalgamation of the environmental, historical, and social-psychological points of view with the addition of current knowledge in rhw fields of socio-biology, clinical and developmental psychology. This view, the Cultural-Distance Approach, briefly stated is that a sub-culture's distance from the major culture, on which test questions of a test are based and validated, will determine that sub-culture’s group sub-score pattern in relation to the sub-score pattern of the norming population. Therefore minority member performance on tests based and validated on the major culture (or even validated according to percentage representation of all sub-cultures in the supra-culture) will show characteristic patterns of group responding which are different from those of the norming sample. These response patterns are indications of what is salient to each minority sub-culture on the tests and within the major culture, and what is not. This paper is an examination of some of the socio-cultural factors which may lead to group performance differences on IQ tests and an attempt to determine empirically if the Cultural-Distance approach is valid in its analysis of test bias. The results suggest that although Blacks and Whites perform equally on learning tasks at either the Level I or Level II dichotomy of intellectual abilities, performance on standardized tests of IQ do not adequately reflect this equality of performance, possibly because of the loading of cultural-bias in the latter measures.
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    Intellectual assessment and prediction: an analysis of cultural involvement based on the culutrual-distance hypothesis
    Grubb, Henry Jefferson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)
    This paper explores socio-cultural factors which lead to group performance differences on IQ tests and learning tasks in an attempt to determine empirically if the Cultural-Distance Approach hypothesis is useful in accounting for these differences. The Cultural-Distance Approach, briefly stated, suggests that a sub-culture's distance from the major culture on which questions of a test are based and validated will determine that sub-culture's sub-score pattern. Results of the present study indicate that although Blacks and Whites perform similarly on-learning tasks, they perform differently on standardized IQ tests, possibly because of the loading of cultural influences on the latter measures. When cultural influences are controlled for, differences in IQ performance are minimized (i.e., statistically non-significant). The present investigation was a follow-up of the author's previous work in this area (Master‘s thesis; Grubb, 1983), and consisted of two studies. One was a reanalysis of the data obtained in the original study with the addition of college entrance exam scores (SAT) and college grade point averages on the 80 original students. The second study consisted of a replication of the original work with 40-Black and 40-White undergraduates at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. New variables, and their correlation to intelligence, were investigated and included; personality characteristics, racial/ethnic identification, and social adjustment to college. In addition to the previously stated relationships between intelligence, race, and cultural-distance, new information was obtained which indicates: (1) a positive correlation between a conservative, compliant personality and academic ascendancy; (2) a significant correspondence between college involvement (social adaptation or the reduction of cultural-distance) and grade-rated academic performance; and (3) a hypothesized process of supra-cultural (university) adaptation for both Black and White students which has a limiting effect on their sub-culturally based self-esteem. In all, and from all the various sources, this paper tends to support the Cultural-Distance Hypothesis and its influence on group IQ performance.