Graduate Program

School Psychology

Degree Name

Specialist in School Psychology

Semester of Degree Completion

2009

Thesis Director

Gary Canivez

Thesis Committee Member

J. Michael Havey

Thesis Committee Member

Christine McCormick

Abstract

This study examined the incremental validity of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003) factor scores in predicting reading and math achievement on the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-11; Wechsler, 2002). Participants included K-12 students in a medium sized Midwestern school district who underwent an evaluation using the WISC-IV and the WIAT-II. Block entry multiple regression analyses were used to examine whether the WISC-IV factor scores substantially improved the prediction ofreading or math achievement on the WIAT-11 above and beyond the contribution made by the FSIQ. Results indicated that the WISC-IV FSIQ accounted for the majority of the variance in both reading and mathematics composite scores on the WIAT-II (34.3% and 55.7% respectively). In the prediction of reading achievement, the factor score indexes provided a statistically significant increment over the FSIQ, though the size of improvement (7.9%) was too small to be of clinical utility. In the prediction of math achievement, the factor scores did not provide a significant increment of prediction (1.1 %) above and beyond the FSIQ. This study indicated that the WISC-IV factor scores did not substantially increase the predictive validity beyond the WISC-IV FSIQ. Therefore, like other investigations (Glutting et al., 1997; Glutting et al., 2006; Watkins et al., 2007), psychologists only need to interpret the WISC-IV FSIQ when predicting reading or math performance on the WIA T-II.

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