Four areas of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children are critically examined from an information processing perspective: theory, tests, scales and scores, and interpretation and educational applications. It is concluded that the promise of a marked improvement in intellectual assessment went unfulfilled. (Author/CL)

Experimenter bias effects were experimentally manipulated in a sample of 97 school psychologists scoring 3 subscales (Similarity, Vocabulary, and Comprehension) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III). First year (n=29), interns (n=42), and experienced (n=26) psychologists were randomly assigned to either a bias or…

School psychologists were surveyed as to their perceptions and opinions of the fourth edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Responses were received from 97 of the 200 psychologists surveyed, for a response rate of 48.5%. The survey indicated that the majority of school psychologists need additional training in administering, scoring,…

No WISC-R IQ scale is immune to serious scoring errors. Inspection of the standard deviations reveals that the score an examinee receives for a given performance on WISC-R content can easily vary by six to eight IQ points. (Author)

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Revised (WISC-R) Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ's were compared with Bannatyne recategorized WISC-R scores for groups of non-handicapped, educationally disadvantaged, learning disabled, and regular classroom Navajo Indian children. No definitive evidence was found to support the use of the…

An item analysis profile sheet to accompany the Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT) is helpful in providing a functional test interpretation. The lack of recorded technical and statistical information is a serious concern. Without such information, a practitioner could not use the Item Analysis of SIT with confidence. (Author)

The study assessed the utility of different factor structures of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised in differentiating Israeli male students (ages 6-16) with learning disability from children with emotional disturbance. Based on several comparisons the results indicated that only the modified A.S. Kaufman's factor structure…

The study investigated levels of agreement among graduate students (n=14) and school psychologists (n=18) in scoring drawings for the 10 designs on the WPPSI Geometric Design subtest. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred within each group. Results suggest careful study of the WPPSI scoring criteria is needed to achieve scoring proficiency.…

Progress, or lack thereof, in the development of ability testing is reviewed. Current tests, though inadequate, respond to the demands of test consumers. Test publishers must look ahead to changing demands and begin to lead the market, rather than follow it, by drawing on basic research in testing. (SLD)

The Spanish Picture Vocabulary Test was designed to provide a Spanish-language translation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test which would be suitable for Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican school-children in New York City. The 300 stimulus words were translated according to a consensus of linguists and persons of Puerto Rican descent, and were…

This fact sheet lists problems involved in the use of standardized tests. It is argued that standardized tests are not really fair and helpful evaluation tools because they reward the ability to answer superficial questions quickly and do not measure the ability to think or create in any field. They also assume that all test takers have been…

Under Title V, Guidance, Counseling, and Testing of the "National Defense Education Act of 1958," the Congress of the United States has recognized the value of tests as a tool which may be used to help make an early determination of the aptitudes and abilities of the students in U.S. schools. This bulletin attempts to explain the use and…