preview

David Wechsler Preschool

Decent Essays

David Wechsler developed the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) assessment in 1967 in response to an increase in the demand for a test that assessed the intelligence of preschoolers (Cohen, Swerdlik, & Sturman, 2012). There were three revisions developed since 1967, the WPPSI-Revised, the WPPSI-III, and the current version, the WPPSI-IV. Pearson Education Company published the WPPSI-IV in 2012. Pearson’s revision goals aimed to increase the test’s psychometric properties, reflect the current theoretical research, increase user friendliness, and expand its clinical utility. To achieve these goals, Pearson conducted a 4-year research and development program dedicated to the improvement of the WPPSI (Syeda & Climie, …show more content…

The objective and well-written criteria for scoring led to an excellent interscorer reliability coefficient ranging from .98 to .99 (Syeda & Climie, 2014; Wechsler, 2012b). Moreover, nine doctoral students were asked to score the subjective subtests of a sample of 60 cases. The interscorer reliability remained high with a coefficient of .96-.99 (Wechsler, 2012b). These coefficients demonstrated the scoring criteria was written clearly and concisely. Overall, Pearson effectively demonstrated the reliability of the WPPSI-IV in the Testing and Interpretative Manual (Syeda & Climie, …show more content…

Content validity measures the extent to which the test measures what it says it will measure. To ensure the WPPSI-IV had sufficient content validity, expert panels reviewed each revision of individual items and subtests at each stage of the development process. Furthermore, literature reviews were conducted, which yielded lengthy explanations of the construct each subtest was designed to measure (Syeda & Climie, 2014; Wechsler, 2012b). Test administrators interviewed individuals who had common incorrect responses and asked them to explain their problem-solving process. Utilizing the feedback from the examinees, the test developers altered items to decrease the likelihood of these common incorrect responses (Syeda & Climie, 2014). Pearson provided adequate correlation coefficients between the WPPSI-IV and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test – Third Edition (WIAT-III), and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), demonstrating convergent validity. Additionally, low correlation coefficients between tests that measured unrelated constructs demonstrated divergent validity (Wechsler,

Get Access