Structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Fourth Edition among a national sample of referred students.
The structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV; D. Wechsler, 2003a) was analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis among a national sample of 355 students referred for psychoeducational evaluation by 93 school psychologists from 35 states. The structure of the WISC-IV core battery was best represented by four first-order factors as per D. Wechsler (2003b), plus a general intelligence factor in a direct hierarchical model. The general factor was the predominate source of variation among WISC-IV subtests, accounting for 48% of the total variance and 75% of the common variance. The largest 1st-order factor, Processing Speed, only accounted for 6.1% total and 9.5% common variance. Given these explanatory contributions, recommendations favoring interpretation of the 1st-order factor scores over the general intelligence score appear to be misguided.
School Psychology Program, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1811, USA. Marley.Watkins@asu.edu
Marley W
MW
Watkins
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D019988:Children with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D004519:Education, Special; D004608:Eligibility Determination; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014888:Wechsler Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*