Typical intellectual engagement

Goff and Ackerman proposed a distinction between typical and maximal performance on intellectual tasks. Traditional approaches to intelligence testing attempt to assess capacity or maximal performance and aim to minimise the impact of situational or environmental factors on test performance in order to assess the individual's full potential. Test givers and designers do acknowledge that intelligence test performance is not independent of motivational or volitional factors, as test takers are typically encouraged to "do their best" when taking intelligence tests. Personality tests in contrast to intelligence tests, focus on how a person typically behaves. Goff and Ackerman argued that this is analogous to the concept of intelligence as typical performance, that is, how a person routinely behaves when performing intellectual tasks. Goff and Ackerman argued that it is not practical or desirable to separate intellectual performance from motivational and volitional factors. The latter may be influenced by both temperamental (personality) and situational factors (e.g. incentives, interest in the task). The construct of Typical Intellectual Engagement was developed to identify the overlapping area between personality and intelligence and attempts to assess "intelligence as typical performance". Goff and Ackerman developed TIE scale items to "differentiate among individuals in their typical expression of a desire to engage and understand their world, their interest in a wide variety of things, and their preference for a complete understanding of a complex topic". TIE scales assess three facets: problem-directed thinking (e.g. "I really enjoy tasks that involve coming up with new solutions to problems"), abstract thinking (e.g. "thinking is not my idea of fun" – reverse scored), and reading (e.g. "I read a great deal"). ==Relationships with intelligence, interests and academic performance==

Goff and Ackerman found that TIE was moderately associated with crystallized intelligence (r = .33) and weakly associated with fluid intelligence (r = .11). The authors of this study suggested that intellectual curiosity, as measured by TIE, is a potential "third pillar" of academic achievement, the other two pillars being intelligence and effort. ==Relationship with similar constructs==

TIE has a strong positive relationship with the personality domain openness to experience, particularly the ideas facet. Goff and Ackerman argued though that although TIE and openness are related they are still theoretically and empirically distinguishable. Intellectual curiosity can be defined as "desire for knowledge that motivates individuals to learn new ideas, eliminate information-gaps, and solve intellectual problems". Factor analysis showed that measures of all four constructs loaded strongly onto a single factor, suggesting they all share a common conceptual basis. The author of this study argued that although the four constructs lack discriminant validity they are not necessarily all conceptually equivalent as each one may emphasise particular aspects of functioning more than others. For example, TIE has a reading facet that emphasises a particular behaviour, whereas the other constructs do not necessarily emphasise reading behaviour. ==See also==