Intelligence tests are used in a variety of settings such as schools, clinics, and courts to assess the intellectual capacity of individuals of all ages. Intelligence tests are used to make high-stakes decisions such as special education placement, employment, eligibility for social security services, and determination of the death penalty.…

Administration and scoring of cognitive assessments have evolved from a paper-based platform to a digital format. Since this advancement, Pearson has created a system (Q-interactive) that allows examiners to administer the WISC-V via two iPads. However, limited research exists exploring the effects of this new method of administration when…

To evaluate the implications of deliberate practice when teaching test administration skills, novice, but trained, graduate student examiners administered intelligence tests to a convenience sample of volunteer school-age examinees assigned to a first test session. A second, different convenience sample of volunteer school-age examinees were…

Reliable and valid assessment of individuals who are English language learners (ELL) has presented a dilemma to psychologists, and school psychologists in particular, as it is complicated by the small number of professionals qualified to serve as bilingual examiners. Some psychologists use ancillary examiners during testing when no bilingual…

A total of 51 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) protocols, administered by graduate students in training, were examined to obtain data describing the frequency of examiner errors and the impact of errors on resultant test scores. Present results were generally consistent with previous research examining graduate…

The purpose of this study is to determine (1) whether the previously observed vulnerability of WISC subtests to tester effects appeared under ordinary testing conditions, and (2) which subtests were most susceptible to these effects. Results support the presence of both general and differential vulnerability of subtests. (Author)

This study investigated how well raters who ranged from undergraduate students to experts in the field of linguistics would agree with the scoring examples given in the WISC manual for selected Vocabulary subtest responses. (Authors)

Analyzed 56 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised protocols completed by 1 certified and 8 licensed practitioners to examine administration and scoring mistakes. Observed numerous mistakes (failure to record examinee responses, assigning too few or too many points to answers, inappropriate questioning, and failure to obtain correct…

Examined 60 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Education (WISC-III) protocols administered by graduate students in training to obtain preliminary data on the frequency and types of administration and scoring errors that examiners commit. The five most frequent errors included failure to query, failure to record response verbatim,…

Investigated most frequent types of examiner errors made by graduate students (n=26) in administering Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and examined on which items these mistakes were most likely to occur. Findings identified deficiencies in traditional methods of teaching students how to administer the WISC-R. Students…

Interrater differences in scoring actual WISC protocols were determined for three different IQ levels. In general, differences among the 94 examiners tended to be within an acceptable range as established by the standard error of measurement; variance on two Verbal subtests occasionally exceeded their corresponding standard error of measurement.…

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) was administered to (N=72) elementary school children. Compared three methods of pretest rapport establishment for each of two age groups. Results found no significant differences on WISC-R scores as a result of the interaction of age and familiarity conditions. (Author)

Reports a study which investigated the influence of the variables of race (examiner and child race) and expectancy (high and low expectancy) upon the scoring of individual IQ tests. (Author/JM)

Children given tangible rewards, regardless of race of examiner, obtained significantly higher scores. Children given culturally relevant social reinforcement by a Black examiner obtained significantly higher scores than did children given culturally relevant reinforcement by the White examiner. (Author)