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Critical analysis of Meeker’s structure-of-intellect interpretations of the Wechsler intelligence ccale for children and the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale

University of British Columbia

Meeker (1969) presented a method for analyzing the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, 1960 and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 1949 protocols according to Guilford's (1966, 1967) factors of Intellectual ability. By classifying each Stanford-Binet and WISC test item to Guilford's model, Meeker has attempted to present a means whereby an individual's strengths and weaknesses can be determined. Meeker has however assigned test items with an auditory component to a model developed from a battery of tests lacking in this component. She has assigned test items which do not measure pure abilities to a model substantiated by tests which do measure pure abilities. Meeker has presented numerous illogical, arbitrary scoring procedures and incomplete interpretation procedures. If the WISC and the Stanford-Binet test items have been classified accurately by Meeker and they do in fact measure those abilities Meeker purports they measure, children showing strengths on one intelligence scale should show the same strengths on the other scale. Similarily, children showing weakness on one scale should show the same weakness on the other scale. If there are substantial relationships between the WISC and the Stanford-Binet categories as Meeker has classified the test items, and low correlation within the WISC categories and within the Stanford-Binet categories, Meeker is justified in stating that her analyses provides information which, could be beneficial to students. The WISC and the Stanford-Binet were each administered to 46 subjects whose chronological ages ranged from five years three months to 13 years four months. The WISC and Stanford-Binet were scored according to Meeker. As Meeker classified the test items to categories, the twelve categories common to both intelligence measures were used in the analyses and were as follows: memory, cognition, evaluation, convergent production, figural, symbolic, semantic, units, relations, systems, transformations, and implications. As a result of correlational analyses, the strong positive correlations between the same WISC and Stanford-Binet test items classified to the same category, measure the same ability. However the strong positive relationships between WISC categories and different Stanford-Binet categories indicates that test items on the WISC, classified to one category, measure the same ability as do test items on the Stanford-Binet classified in a different category. However, it cannot be concluded that WISC items classified by Meeker to one category measure the same ability as do Stanford-Binet items classified to a different category since every item on the two tests has been classified in at least three categories. The overlap of test items may account for the strong relationship between different WISC and Stanford-Binet categories. It can be concluded that Meeker has misclassified the Coding 'A' subtest of the WISC. If Meeker's test item assignment to Guilford's model is justified, Coding 'A' subtest should be classified as symbolic, not figural as Meeker has done. By classifying test items to Guilford's cells Meeker has classified every test item to at least three different categories. By removing those items which are common to each pair of categories of the WISC and the Stanford-Binet, with the resulting moderate to strong relationships between categories of the WISC and between categories of the Stanford-Binet, it is concluded that test items on each scale classified to one category measure the same ability as do different items classified to a different category. Each WISC and Stanford-Binet test item was not intended to measure a pure ability whereas Guilford's model is substantiated by tests measuring pure abilities. It can be concluded that the WISC and the Stanford-Binet should not be applied to Guilford's Model as Meeker has done and individual strengths and weaknesses cannot be determined from her adaptation of the two intelligence scales.

Text

2010-01-22

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/18905

School Psychology

University of British Columbia

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