A cross-cultural comparison between South African and British students on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales Third Edition (WAIS-III)

“Model adequacy was therefore evaluated using additional global fit indices, such as the Comparative Fit Index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), that are more sensitive to model specification than to sample size (Kline, 1998).”

“A chi-square difference test indicated a significant difference in fit between Step 2 and Step 3: χ2(9) = 187.82; p < 0.001.”

“RMSEA and SRMR values below 0.05 indicate a good fit, values between 0.08 and 0.10 indicate a mediocre fit, and values above 0.10 indicate a poor fit (McDonald and Ho, 2002).”

“An established measure of intelligence, the WAIS-III (Wechsler, 1997), was administered.”

“Violations of measurement invariance would imply that the same construct is not being measured across different cultural groups and could complicate meaningful interpretation of test data (Dolan et al., 2006; Milfont and Fischer, 2010).”

“Given the findings of the current study and evidence of a strong relationship between WM and educational outcomes (Cowan and Alloway, 2008; Alloway and Alloway, 2010), measures of WM offer promise in the search for fairer assessment practices with individuals from diverse backgrounds.”

“…finding in the current study are most likely a Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 8 March 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 297 result ofmultiple interacting factors, whichmay include sampling and socio-cultural changes in SA over the last 20 years, including the Flynn (1984, 1987, 2009) effect.”

“…such as numbers and letters, they are less likely to confer obvious advantages or disadvantages to individuals from vastly differing backgrounds and are relatively uninfluenced by environmental factors such type and quality of education, SES and linguistic background (Alloway et al., 2004).”

“This challenges the view that visuo-spatial and non-verbal tests tend to be culturally fairer than verbal ones (Rosselli and Ardila, 2003).”

“…culture-fair, intelligence tests, WAIS-III, working memory Introduction Intelligence (IQ) testing is widely used in cross-cultural contexts, yet there are still persistent critiques that such tests can perpetuate racist beliefs and lead to discrimination (Helms, 1992; Kaufman, 1994).”

“…quality of education, past studies have identified cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors as affecting IQ test performance (Harris et al., 2003; Turkheimer et al., 2003; Manly et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006; Boone et al., 2007; Walker et al., 2009).”

“…based measures which draw on fluid problem solving skills are likely to be more culture fair than those that rely on acquired, long-term learning (Campbell et al., 1997; Nell, 2000), the review of the literature indicates that there does not appear to be a single WAIS-III subtest that…”

“An aspect of acculturation, test-wiseness, has been reported as ‘the most powerful moderator of test performance,’ exerting strong effects on both verbal and non-verbal test performance (Nell, 2000, p. 133).”

“…to level and quality of education, past studies have identified cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors as affecting IQ test performance (Harris et al., 2003; Turkheimer et al., 2003; Manly et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006; Boone et al., 2007; Walker…”

“Degree of acculturation also accounted for the lower scores of African American individuals on the WAIS-R Block Design (Manly et al., 1998).”

“There is some debate regarding the extent to which WM tests are free of cultural biases (Ostrosky-Solis and Lozano, 2006).”

“The latter study found no cross-cultural effects on Block Designs and Matrix Reasoning, although these subtests have been widely criticized elsewhere as lacking cross-cultural validity (Kaufman et al., 1988; Marcopulos et al., 1997; Dugbartey et al., 1999; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004).”

“This analytic technique has been advocated particularly in the investigation of group differences in IQ test scores (Dolan et al., 2004, 2006; Wicherts and Dolan, 2010).”

“The PS performance of the SA group may also account for their performance on the WM tests, as faster processing allows for greater mental rehearsal, faster execution of ongoing tasks and greater synchronization of task components in WM (Nettelbeck and Burns, 2010).”

“Other comparisons found that African American individuals score lower than Caucasian individuals on WAIS-III Digit Span, but not Digit Symbol (Razani et al., 2007), while individuals of Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds score lower than those of English-speaking backgrounds on…”

“Effects of culture are likely to be most pronounced where cultural background is most divergent from an English first language, Western culture (Ardila and Moreno, 2001).”

“Flynn effects, which refer to an average increase of three IQ points per decade (with two IQ points increase per decade on the Verbal Scale and four IQ points on the Performance or non-verbal Scale) have been reported in many nations (Barber, 2005; Flynn, 2007, 2009).”

“The most comprehensive cross-cultural studies on the WAIS-III have been conducted by Shuttleworth-Edwards (1996), Shuttleworth-Edwards et al. (2004, 2013), with black and white Southern Africans.”

“…quality of education, past studies have identified cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors as affecting IQ test performance (Harris et al., 2003; Turkheimer et al., 2003; Manly et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006; Boone et al., 2007; Walker et al., 2009).”

“Given the findings of the current study and evidence of a strong relationship between WM and educational outcomes (Cowan and Alloway, 2008; Alloway and Alloway, 2010), measures of WM offer promise in the search for fairer assessment practices with individuals from diverse backgrounds.”

“Flynn effects, which refer to an average increase of three IQ points per decade (with two IQ points increase per decade on the Verbal Scale and four IQ points on the Performance or non-verbal Scale) have been reported in many nations (Barber, 2005; Flynn, 2007, 2009).”

“…variables, most include language usage, testwiseness (test-taking skill, motivation, and perceptions of test face validity), socio-economic status (SES), home and school environments, and level and quality of education (Kennepohl et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Perry et al., 2008).”

“Violations of measurement invariance would imply that the same construct is not being measured across different cultural groups and could complicate meaningful interpretation of test data (Dolan et al., 2006; Milfont and Fischer, 2010).”

“Given previous evidence, it was unsurprising that the verbal subtests showed the highest degree of cultural difference (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006).”

“This analytic technique has been advocated particularly in the investigation of group differences in IQ test scores (Dolan et al., 2004, 2006; Wicherts and Dolan, 2010).”

“…to level and quality of education, past studies have identified cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors as affecting IQ test performance (Harris et al., 2003; Turkheimer et al., 2003; Manly et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006; Boone et al., 2007; Walker…”

“The latter study found no cross-cultural effects on Block Designs and Matrix Reasoning, although these subtests have been widely criticized elsewhere as lacking cross-cultural validity (Kaufman et al., 1988; Marcopulos et al., 1997; Dugbartey et al., 1999; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004).”

“…Americans tend to score significantly lower than white and Hispanic groups on the WAIS-III Verbal Comprehension (VCI), Perceptual Organization (POI), and Processing Speed (PSI) indices (Heaton et al., 2003), on the WAIS-R subtests (Kaufman et al., 1991) and WAIS-R Full Scale IQ (Byrd et al., 2006).”

“In support of this, higher performance on IQ tests has been demonstrated by individuals from Mexican–American backgrounds who possess greater ‘Anglo socio-cultural characteristics’ (Gonzales and Roll, 1985; Razani et al., 2006, p. 777).”

“This adaptation has been criticized for failing to re-pilot the adaptations for possible cultural and language biases and for neglecting to stratify the norms according to quality of education (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Foxcroft and Aston, 2006).”

“In support of this, European individuals (from Germany, France, UK, Finland, and Spain) have been found to focus on accuracy over speed on the WAIS-III in comparison to US individuals (Roivainen, 2010).”

“To the authors’ knowledge, there are no published data on Flynn effects in black South Africans (the sample of interest in the current study), but data from white and Indian South Africans (te Nijenhuis et al., 2011) show increases in the expected direction and magnitude.”

“…to correlate significantly with performance on most WAIS-III indices and subtests (Heaton et al., 2003) in European (Kessels andWingbermuhle, 2001; Grégoire, 2004), American (Razani et al., 2006), Australian (WAIS-R, Shores and Carstairs, 2000), and African samples (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al.,…”

“Cross-cultural differences in WM performance have been found with children from Zaire and Laos on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC; Boivin, 1991; Conant et al., 1999, 2003).”

“…correlate significantly with performance on most WAIS-III indices and subtests (Heaton et al., 2003) in European (Kessels andWingbermuhle, 2001; Grégoire, 2004), American (Razani et al., 2006), Australian (WAIS-R, Shores and Carstairs, 2000), and African samples (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004).”

“Cross-cultural differences in WM performance have been found with children from Zaire and Laos on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC; Boivin, 1991; Conant et al., 1999, 2003).”

“Since WM and PS are strongly related to fluid ability, concomitant influences could also be expected in these areas (Weiss, 2010).”

“If the current SA data are compared to that of Shuttleworth-Edwards et al. (2004, 2013) for black Africans with an ex-DET education and 15+ years of education (n = 12), published 10 years ago, the data are within 1 standard deviation of each other, and do not differ significantly in terms of Index…”

“…subtest in the WMI, Arithmetic, draws on several abilities (VC, WM, freedom from distractibility, numerical knowledge, and procedural knowledge) so that its consequent dual loading on both VCI and WMI for both UK and SA samples is not unexpected and has been demonstrated elsewhere (Grégoire, 2013).”

“Cross-cultural differences in WM performance have been found with children from Zaire and Laos on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC; Boivin, 1991; Conant et al., 1999, 2003).”

“…variables, most include language usage, testwiseness (test-taking skill, motivation, and perceptions of test face validity), socio-economic status (SES), home and school environments, and level and quality of education (Kennepohl et al., 2004; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Perry et al., 2008).”

“Nevertheless, some previous studies compared bilinguals and monolinguals from different SES backgrounds (e.g. Babayiğit 2015; Cockcroft et al. 2015; da Fontoura and Siegel 1995).”

“Thus, Cockcroft et al. (2015) compared a multilingual, low socioeconomic group of black South African students with a predominantly white, British, monolingual, higher socioeconomic group and found that subtest scores loaded differently for the two groups.”

“The WAIS-III includes 14 subtests, of which 13 were administered (the object assembly subtest was omitted since it does not contribute to the full-scale IQ; Cockcroft et al., 2015).”

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining sex differences in ARMS and healthy subjects by using wellestablished tests to evaluate processing speed (i.e., TrailMaking Test, WAIS-III Digit Symbol subtest).”

“In 2014, despite remission of psychotic symptoms, there was no significant improvement in psychoactive symptoms, and he showed increasing irritability, impulsivity, and anhedonia.”

“Here Block design loaded to factors representing both Processing speed and Verbal skills, which may arise from the fact that Block design usually correlates with a broad range of cognitive tasks including processing speed and verbal intelligence (Cockcroft et al., 2015).”

“…in which they are used (McHenry et al., 2021; Pendergast et al., 2018), and in some cases they have been used in countries such as South Africa in which English is an acquired language in school (Cockcroft, Alloway, Copello, & Milligan, 2015; Skuy, Taylor, O'Carroll, Fridjhon, & Rosenthal, 2000).”

“Another potential explanation is that tests involving working memory, such as the RDS, seem to be more resistant to cultural differences (Cockcroft et al., 2015; de Abreu et al., 2013).”

“However, the actual conduct of the research as described below highlights the challenges faced, as well as social and linguistic contexts that are overlooked in many Western assessments, inventories and cognitive measures (see Cockcroft et al. 2015, 1).”

“Cockcroft et al. (2015) have analyzed and compared the cognitive skills of a sample of students from South Africa and another one from Great Britain, and found that there were intercultural differences in every neuropsychological test – verbal and non-verbal – that was administered, as well as in…”

“The WAIS‐III comprises 14 subtests (vocabulary, similarities, information, comprehension, block design, matrix reasoning, picture completion, picture arrangement, coding, symbol search, digit span, letter-number sequencing, arithmetics and object assembly) (27).”

“A crosscultural comparison between South African and British students on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales Third Edition (WAIS-III).”

“…adults and children with disad-vantaged quality of education tend to score significantly lower than those with advantaged quality of education (Cockcroft et al., 2015; Shuttleworth-Edwards & Van der Merwe, 2016; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004, 2013; Truter & Shuttleworth-Edwards, 2019,…”

“A cross-cultural study by Cockcroft et al. (2015) on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales Third Edition (WAIS-III) found that the British group significantly outperformed the South African group on the knowledge-based verbal test.”

“Thus, previous studies (Cockcroft et al., 2015; Harrison et al., 2014; Shuttleworh-Edwards et al., 2014) showed that developing a standardized norm for a country is essential for the interpretation process of individual scores.”

“Tests falling in the Wechsler family of tests are amongst the most frequently used tests across a range of clinical, developmental, educational and neuropsychological settings (Cockcroft et al., 2015; Rabin et al., 2008; Silva, 2008).”

“This grouping is due to historical reasons, or linguistic reasons, or both (´Angel & Pacheco, 2014; Cockcroft et al., 2015; Levy & Schady, 2013; Rocha Carpiuc, 2016).”