Absence of parallel forms for the traditional individual intelligence tests

The issue of the absence of parallel forms for the traditional individual intelligence tests has received little attention in the area of psychological testing ever since the early demise of the Wechsler Bellevue Form II and the delayed discontinuance of Form M of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Five reasons have been presented here to argue that the availability of parallel forms could have both theoretical and practical benefits, especially if the constructors of individual ability and/or achievement tests employ the recent advances in item response theory and computer technology.     

Factor analysis of MMPI-2 basic scales among college students

The MMPI-2 was administered to 288 college students (178 women and 110 men) between the ages of 18 and 34 years. Scores on the basic 13 (three validity and ten clinical) scales were correlated and subjected to principal component analyses separately for men and women. In each case, four factors were retained and subjected to varimax rotation. Coefficients of congruence were calculated for all possible pairs of factors across two samples of college students and the normative adults, separately for men and women, and across genders within each sample. Results indicated that the factorial structure of the MMPI-2 basic scales seemed to possess considerable uniformity across samples and genders, but not without some notable exceptions.     

Reasoning ability in older adults measured through letter and number series

Letter series and number series tests, consisting of items based on identical rules, were administered in a counterbalanced design to 58 persons (46 women and 12 men) between the ages of 61 and 88 years to determine their relative efficacy (relative difficulty and acceptability) as measures of inductive/deductive reasoning ability. Results indicated that letter and number series tests, in which each item in one has a same-rule counterpart in the other, were not equivalent in regard to their relative difficulty or popularity among the elderly. The number series test was significantly (p 0001) easier and more popular than its letter series counterpart. Some of the implications of these findings for assessing reasoning ability in the elderly were specified.     

Reasoning ability in older adults measured through letter and number series

Letter series and number series tests, consisting of items based on identical rules, were administered in a counterbalanced design to 58 persons (46 women and 12 men) between the ages of 61 and 88 years to determine their relative efficacy (relative difficulty and acceptability) as measures of inductive/deductive reasoning ability. Results indicated that letter and number series tests, in which each item in one has a same-rule counterpart in the other, were not equivalent in regard to their relative difficulty or popularity among the elderly. The number series test was significantly (p 0001) easier and more popular than its letter series counterpart. Some of the implications of these findings for assessing reasoning ability in the elderly were specified.     

Gender differences on the WPPSI,the WISC-R,and the WPPSI-R

The WPPSI, WISC-R, and WPPSI-R were administered in a counterbalanced design to 72 children between the ages of 5 years, 10 months, 16 days, and 6 years, 7 months, and 15 days to test the hypothesis that mean verbal IQs on these scales would be higher for boys than for girls. Results indicated that the mean verbal IQs for boys were significantly (p<.05) higher than those for girls on all three scales. Also, significant (p<.05) differences favoring boys were found onVocabulary andComprehension subtests on all three scales. These differences are probably a peculiarity of these scales and may not need any elaborate theoretical explanation. However, clinical uses of verbal and performance IQ discrepancies may not justifiably ignore the examinees’ gender.     

Gender differences in reasoning ability measured by letter series items

Letter series and number series tests, consisting of items based on identical rules, were administered in a counterbalanced design to 320 (160 female and 160 male) undergraduates in order to investigate the gender differences in inductive reasoning ability measured by letter and number series tests. Results indicated that female college students obtained significantly higher (p<.05) means on letter series tests, but showed no such superiority on number series.     

The invariance of certain personality factors over four decades

The Michill Adjective Rating Scale (MARS) measures four factors: Unhappiness (similar to Emotional Stability versus Neuroticism of the Big-Five), Extraversion (similar to Extraversion versus Introversion of the Big-Five), Selfassertiveness (similar to Agreeableness versus Disagreeableness of the Big-Five), and Productive Persistence (similar to Dependability versus Undependability of the Big-Five). To investigate the invariance of the factor structure represented by these four factors, selfrating data collected with MARS, over a period of four decades, were divided into three samples of 204 (tested between 1954 and 1956), 441 (tested between 1966 and 1968), and 289 (tested between 1996 and 1998) undergraduates. Comparison of the loadings of the 48 MARS items on the foregoing four factors, across the three samples drawn from three separate populations, yielded median stability coefficients (Pearson rs) ranging between .85 and .96.     

The invariance of certain personality factors over four decades

The Michill Adjective Rating Scale (MARS) measures four factors: Unhappiness (similar to Emotional Stability versus Neuroticism of the Big-Five), Extraversion (similar to Extraversion versus Introversion of the Big-Five), Selfassertiveness (similar to Agreeableness versus Disagreeableness of the Big-Five), and Productive Persistence (similar to Dependability versus Undependability of the Big-Five). To investigate the invariance of the factor structure represented by these four factors, selfrating data collected with MARS, over a period of four decades, were divided into three samples of 204 (tested between 1954 and 1956), 441 (tested between 1966 and 1968), and 289 (tested between 1996 and 1998) undergraduates. Comparison of the loadings of the 48 MARS items on the foregoing four factors, across the three samples drawn from three separate populations, yielded median stability coefficients (Pearson rs) ranging between .85 and .96.     

Non-equivalence of WPPSI, WPPSI-R, and WISC-R scores

The WPPSI-R, WISC-R, and WPPSI were administered in a counterbalanced design to 72 children, between the ages of 5 years, 11 months and 6 years, 8 months, in order to determine their equivalence by testing the equality of means, variances, and covariances based on scaled scores and IQs. The results indicated that the three scales were not equivalent with respect to any of the IQs because they did not meet one or more of the criteria. The relative magnitudes of the mean IQs on the three scales were in accord with the predicted order: highest IQs on WPPSI, next highest on WISC-R, and the lowest on WPPSI-R. Results were discussed in the context of the secular inflation in IQs and the corresponding compensatory deflation built into the normative data of the new versions.