Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

Motivational Factors 271
others, for Negroes do not perform poorly on all kinds of tests.
Jensen (1968b) has shown, for example, that Negro pre-schoolers
with a mean IQ nineteen points below white children perform
equal to the whites on tests of memory span - when the latter
tests are given under the same conditions and by the same examiner
as the IQ tests. But a factor analysis showed that the memory
tests were not measures of intelligence; they involve another kind
of mental ability. In this study, the memory test actually called for
more attention and freedom from distraction than did the IQ test.
Subsequent studies (Jensen, 1970b, c; 1971a; Jensen & Rohwer,
1970) have consistently found much smaller or non-significant
Negro-white differences on tests of immediate memory while at
the same time there were differences of more than one standard
deviation on intelligence tests administered by the same testers
under the same conditions as the memory tests. If motivational
factors or testee and tester interactions affect the intelligence score,
one would have to explain why these factors do not affect the
memory test scores. It appears that, in general, to the degree that
a test does not correlate with intelligence or abstract, conceptual,
problem-solving ability, it fails to show a mean difference between
Negroes and whites. This observation affords a means for assessing
motivational differences in test performance more or less uncontaminated
by differences involving intellectual ability per se. If
it is hypothesized that poor test performance results from poor
motivation, inhibition of effort, or just not trying as hard as others,
it is difficult to pit this hypothesis against one which states that
the difference in test performance is due to a lesser cognitive
ability for dealing with g material, i.e., concepts, relationships, and
abstractions, if one and the same test is used to assess motivation
and intelligence, for then motivation and mental ability are
confounded in the testing situation.
To get around this methodological problem, a motivationsensitive
test involving speed and persistence was devised so as to
maximize dependence upon effort and minimize dependence on
cognitive ability, particularly of the kind characterized by g. This
experimental task, called the Making Xs test, is one kind of objective
assessment of test-taking motivation. It gives an indication of the
subject’s willingness to comply with instructions in a group testing
situation and to mobilize effort in following these instructions for
a brief period of time (see pp. 121-2). It has also shown greater