Kavita is a counsellor in a government school in a Jharkhand village. A private agency gave the Class 6 pupils a reasoning test bought from abroad and translated into Hindi. Its items asked about escalators, credit cards, snowfall and supermarket shelves, and each child's score was compared with figures from children of that country. Most pupils scored far below those figures. One of them, Birsa, keeps the accounts of his mother's vegetable stall in his head and built a bamboo water-wheel for the school garden. After the results, the principal seated the low scorers on separate benches, and several families stopped paying for their extra tuition, saying it would be wasted.
Kavita has asked for the pupils to be assessed again. Which kind of test would best reduce the problem seen in their first scores?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → A non-verbal or performance test whose items assess experiences common to all cultures
Option (1) The same test with its items and norms unchanged, but read aloud to each pupil in Santhali — Incorrect. Reading the items aloud only changes how they are given, so the test stays verbal. Its foreign items and foreign norms still favour the culture where it was made, so the bias stays.
Option (2) A verbal test made in a big Indian city, with norms drawn from urban middle class schools — Incorrect. Being made in India does not make a test fair to every Indian child. A test biased in favour of the middle class may underestimate the IQ of children from disadvantaged sections, such as these village pupils.
Option (3) A non-verbal or performance test whose items assess experiences common to all cultures — Correct. The first test showed culture bias: its items and norms came from another culture. A culture-fair test does not discriminate against people of different cultures. Pictures, patterns or objects to handle need little language and use experiences all children share, so they reduce the bias of verbal tests.
Option (4) The same test with its items unchanged, but scored against norms drawn from Jharkhand pupils — Incorrect. New norms change only the group a score is compared with. The items on escalators and credit cards still do not respect the pupils' own culture, so the test is still biased.
NCERT (2026-27): “Culture-Fair or Culture-Biased Tests “It is nearly impossible to design a test that can be applied equally meaningfully in all cultures. Psychologists have tried to develop tests that are culture-fair or culturally appropriate, i.e. one that does not discriminate against individuals belonging to different cultures. In such tests, items are constructed in a manner that they assess experiences common to all cultures or have questions in which language usage is not required. Non-verbal and performance tests help reduce the cultural bias usually associated with verbal tests.” |