General intelligence and ability

Ability may be defined as the individual’s cognitive capability to perform a task.

The study of ability is one of the oldest and most established branch of psychology dealing with individual differences. Researchers have always been very keen to establish what makes a person more capable than the other as it has a significant impact on our educational system. Over the last 100 years, and through the extensive use of a statistical technique known as factor analysis, psychologists have succeeded in crystallizing the correlations of over 20 primary mental abilities (PMA) into a single factor of general intelligence/ability known simply as ‘g’.

“g” represents the third order and highest level of a three-level hierarchy of abilities, this g-factor has been used to predict a number of abilities successfully. Examples of such predictions were conducted by Ghiselli (1966), Snow and Yalow (1982), Cronbach (1994) and Goff (1995).

Second-order abilities comprise six secondary factors of ability. These were identified by Horn and Cattell (1966) and Hakstain and Cattell (1978) and later replicated by several other researchers. They include Crystallized intelligence (Gc), Fluid intelligence (Gf), Visualization (Gv), Perceptual speed or Cognitive speed (Gp), Retrieval ability (Gr) and Memory (Gm).

According to research, the general ability of an individual tnd to stabilise at the age of eighteen. In other words, we would be able to judge the ability of an indivual based on his ability demonstrated in college!

The question you would like to ask is what about on-the-job training and other forms of continuous learning. How does all these efforts add to our ability? Would a person improve on his general and secondary abilities over his adult working life? How do we gauge the knowledge and experiene in a person, and what would would that equate to in terms of "g"