Standardization of the WISC-R for students aged 12-15 years in Iraq

Rashed, Adnan Ghaib

Abstract

The main aim of this research was to provide the educational system in Iraq with a test of intelligence which could have been standardized on a large sample of 12 to 15 year- old students throughout that country. Rather than construct a new intelligence test it was decided to use a well-established test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Revised, the WISC-R, which had been previously standardized in both the U.S.A. (where it originated) and Britain and in many other countries throughout the world. It was considered necessary to modify the form of this test before it could be standardized and made available to some of the Arab countries.

The British version of the test (WISC-R, 1974), after initial piloting, was administered to 800 students equally divided among the four age groups - 12 years, 13 years, 14 years and 15 years. The sampling procedure ensured that the selection of students represented the distribution of secondary-school population in the three main regions of Iraq, as well as providing representative samples from both urban and rural communities. For standardization purposes it was decided to have equal numbers of boys and girls in each year- group.

The raw scores on each subtest of the WISC-R within each age group were scaled to give a mean of 10 and Standard Deviation of 3, which was the procedure used in the original standardizations of the WISC-R. In a similar way the overall Verbal, Performance and Full Scale scores, based on the appropriate subscales, were scaled to give a mean of 100 and Standard Deviation of 15. The intercorrelations of all the subscales were compared with those obtained for the British WISC-R. The results in the present study have similar magnitudes. High values of correlation coefficients were obtained for all subscales separately and with the measures of Verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQs. These again were
comparable to the results of previous studies.

Finally, the study reported on the variables 'socioeconomic status', 'education of parents', 'urban-rural status', 'size of family' and 'regional area of Iraq'. Using t- analyses and analyses of variance it was found that many of these relationships for Iraqi students were similar to these found in previous studies on IQ.

Citation

Rashed, A. G. (1990). Standardization of the WISC-R for students aged 12-15 years in Iraq. (Thesis). University of Hull. Retrieved from https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4215422

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 23, 2023
• Keywords: Education; Psychology
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4215422
• Additional Information: Department of Education, The University of Hull
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1990