ppoa: A RET cal toating bogan, Ht will bo ron ay i ad SS rane 19 measuramen inured “aitforences In intolll- suey “en 4 analysos of this gence, Measuroment and othe complex mental process has co ee to bo the most important and Pearce typo of psychological tosting, It Is ea i able, therefore, to examine the de: oa tions and theories of Intelligence, bot! for their historical value: and their current significance in test construction and utlll- zation, Knowledge of these will give the ‘student a fuller understanding of current tosts. The methodology for measuring mental ability stands at the crossroads between the traditional clinical-emplrical mode of development and the increasingly favoured psychometric approach. At present the traditional clinical methods are serving as the basis and support for tests of single individuals, while the sta- tistical approach is belng employed in progressively more group tests. In the past, the investigators developed certain tests to measure intelligence ac- cording to their preconceived notions of what in functional terms, ability really meant to them, Those who defined ability as the activity to learn, developed vari- ous tests to measure this quality. Simi- larly, those who regarded ability as syn- onymous with intelligence, constructed feasoning problems and tasks to evalu- ate intelligence, In this way ability tests developed into a congeries of empiri- cally assembled tasks organized accord. ng to various operational definitions of thls psychological phenomenon, To define this that ability Is th phenomenon we can say 9 actual power to perform or montal, whether or not re. Special ability led kind of tasks, hould, whenever ROSPECTIVE possible, be so defined, as not to g, with other special abilitios, apg; tp Implios that tho task can bo port, now, If tho necessary external gms staneos are present; no further trainin needed, To compare ability with simi. r phenomenon it is seen that; Aptitude (which formerly carried j plications of Innateness) has now bee specialized in technical writing to refers tho fact that the individual can be brougte by a specified amount of training tos specified level of ability, either generat or special, but usually the latter. Capability is the maximum effective. ness a person can attain with optimum training, Capacity is a loose synonym for abil- ity or even for aptitude, often with implica- tions of innateness. Tafent is a high degree of ability or of aptitude. Gift and endowment are popular terms for high ability, largely innate. Competonce is fitness either for a particular kind of task or fitness in gen- eral, Various theories have come up in the past few years to highlight the different methodologies to be adopted for measur- ing differential abilities. Among the most Prominent ones is that of Group Factor Theories. Such theories were originally conceived by Thurstone whose work re- Sulted in the construction.of a set of mea sures called Tests of Primary Mental Abili- ties. According to group factor theory, ability not an expression of innumerable highly specific factors, nor is it the eX Pression primarily of a general factor that Pervades all mental activities. Infact, the analysis and interpretation of group fac. tor theorists lead to the conclusion that certain mental operations have in com mon a "primary" factor that gives hempsychological and functional unity and that differentiates them from other mental operations. These mental operations, than constitute a "group." A second group ‘of mental operations has its own unifying primary factor; a third group has a third; and so on. In other words, there are a number of groups of mental abilities each of which has its own primary factor, giving the group a functional unity and cohe- siveness. Each of these primary factors is said to be relatively independent of others. Thurstone's work on “primary mental abili- ties’ has been with us for many years, based on the new methods of multiple- factor analysis of some six such ability factors. Whereas, other workers in this area such as Charles Spearman in Brit- ain and Karl Holzinger in US, had argued (particularly Spearman) for studying each separate ability less for its own concep- tual sense and more for its contribution to the overall central intellective or ‘g’ factor = general intelligence. Thurstone’s neo- analytic tool- multiple factor theory -gave, instead, each broad ability construct roughly equal importance and set inves- tigators to the task of more precisely de- fining the limits of the ability factors found in this early research and extending the list of such “primary mental abilities” be- yond the six found in the pioneering re- search Thurstone characterized intelligence as a series of distinct abilities. His approach was somewhat different from that of Thorndike or Weschsler, who assumed that their individual sub-tests were pure measures of the designated ability. Ac- cording to Thurstone, an ability is iso- lated by giving mental tests to a great number of persons and then determining, through a mathematical process known as “factor analyses", the least number of abilities necessary to explain the corre- lations among the tests. In his pioneering study Thurstone (1938) isolated six “fac- tors" that accounted for most of the score similarity of 56 different tests given to a group of college students, These were Verbal, Number, Spatial, Word fluency, Memory, and Reasoning. The verbal fac. tor was identified by its heavy “loadings” on tests of reading, synonyms, analo- gies, grammar, and vocabulary. Similarly, Thurstone's number factor was identified by loadings on such tests as addition, multiplication and arithmetical reason- ing. Out of this research came the first of the “multi-aptitude” test batteries, the pri- mary mental abilities tests. Later, investi- gations showed, however, that the num- ber of factors isolated depended consid- erably on the educational and environ- mental backgrounds of the subjects tested and.on the number and types of tests used in the factor analysis. It was even shown that Thurstone’s so called “pri- mary mental abilities” correlated posi- tively with each other which suggests the presence of a still more basic and gen- eral mental factor as had long been ar- gued by the British psychologist Charles Spearman. Recent thi ing- among factor analysts about the nature of human intelligence has lead to slightly different ideas. One is represented by Spearman's British tradi- tion-of investigation, exemplified by Philip Vernon's structure of human abilities in which human mental abilities are ar- ranged in a hierarchy with a broad gen- eral factor and split into two major “group” factors, one distinguished by verbal and educational abilities (vied) and the other by practical or performance abilities (k:m). Each of these major group factors is the differentiated ‘into more specific factors like Thurstone's verbal, number, and space. These finally break into fac- tors found in specific types of test. Thus, any mental performance can be described as involving percentages of g, v:ed, ver- bal and others until all the factors needed to account for the performance have been determined. The scheme of Horn and Cattell (1966) has some similarity to Vernon's structure. Cattell distinguishes between fluid and crystallized intelli. gence. Crystallized intelligence is largely @ function of one's environment and is much like the v:ed abilities. Fluid intelli- gence reflects more of the genetic aspect of intelligence and is more clearly re- flected in non-language tasks that are less related to one’s background or pre- vious experienceages bilities grows tal an tradition oF Another vi from Thurs! investigation. Guilford, who de ture-of-Intellect_ mo classifies human ment dimensions. The first is det kind of test content confront vidual - “figural”, “symbolic”, 5 .’ The second is or “behavioural”. e an by the types of mental “operations” neCr essary to deal with the various content forms - “cognition’, “memorization”, “con: vergent thinking’, “divergent thinking’, and “evaluation”. The last deals with the ‘outcome or “products” yielded by the vari- ‘ous mental operations applied to the vari- ‘ous content forms. There are six prod- ucts: units of information, classes of units, relations between units, systems of infor- mations, transformations, and implica- tions. With four kinds of contents, five kinds of operations and six kinds of prod- ucts involved in mental performances. Guilford postulates 120 (4x5x6) distinct mental abilities in the SI model. He re- ports that about sixty of these have been isolated through factor analytic investi- gations. Perhaps the most important application of factor-analytic studies of mental abili- ties has been the increasing use of “multi- aptitude” test batteries in educational and vocational guidance. These batteries are composed of a series of individual tests built around the findings of factor analy- sis; to a certain degree each of the en eral battery's: subtests assesses a a 1e- caval. One Such battery is the Differ. ‘itude Test ith high school students, tne one ‘containg uired which could delineate spe. oe Split 's based on current occupa: fional/vocational needs and life-styles, the stimulus for the development oj David 5 Battery of Differential Abilitics (DBDA) came largely from the growing fealization that, although most of the pri- frary ability traits had been isolated ang ttudied, the available standardized test batteries of intelligence and abilities dig not reflect currently accepted views of the humber and nature of the psychological constructs involved. The. overall guiding principal in the development of the DEDA twas to provide a battery of short tests so as to provide investigators with an eco. nomical vehicle for assessing a wide range of the important ability constructs. Thus, keeping the above concept in mind, the David's Battery of Differential Abili, ties (DBDA) - Revised Version is being devised in order to have an accurate mea- sure of an individuals’ various mental abilities. The DBDA (Revised Version) is a standardized procedure for objectively « measuring what a person is able to do at the time he is being assessed and under the conditions of the assessment. In- cluded in this concept is the realization that individual behaviour including men- Gil Pfecesses, is neither consistent nor ‘able. Although scores. for groups may fe relatively stable, it does not follow that he individual score within a group will be similarly stable. And the fact that DBDA a i tab nat mene tian Predictive validity does feat men that any {dividual taking this ability as the group tee Bee et isa prom g ‘up itself. Because ability an individuare, natu"e 8 well as nurture, influenced’? ntal furictioning will be as cuiturat ymeny extrinsic factors such Of educating exposures, including quality SUCH ag pergcs Mel as intrinsic factors most we pe ‘Sonality characteristics. The that it dese yee for the DBDA scores is forms here tPes how the individual per- being equal 7n? NOW, and that all things function in Ate will probably continue to ike manner.ABILITIES MEASURED IN DBDA-R VERBAL ABILITY (VA) Verbal Ability refers to the comprehen- sion of words and ideas, or a person's ability to understand written language. It has ‘been studied by the psychologists for many years and is one of the most important of human abilities. Traditional tests of general intelligence usually t VA to a large extent. In the DBDA, VA is assessed by two different kinds of sub- tests: Vocabulary (VA Part:!) and Under- standing proverbs (VA Part:Il). This abil- ity can be expected to figure prominently in success in academic and school-re- lated performances. It is a predictor of occupations involving much reading and writing of reports, and so on. This factor is assessed by taking the sum of a person's scores on VA-I and V-Il. In this and other tests of the DBDA, no correc- tion for guessing is applied. VA Part:l involves word meaning exer- cise to assess the subject's knowledge of English words and his ability to ab- stract and generalize relationships among words. VA Part-II involves the abil- ity to recognize the proverbs and under- stand their latent meaning, an ability as- sumed to be essentially the same as that of comprehension of language, and us- age of words in day to day life. The VA subtest is included in this battery because it is anticipated to be useful in Predicting important criteria such as aca- demic success, speedy and accurate re- call of exact data received from the sur- roundings, and rapid comprehension of verbal communication where verbal rela- tionships and concepts are important. The VA score deserves a considerable weight where it is to be judged that whether the subject is from a good formal school education or not. Vocationally, the VA score also indicates something about the occupational level upto which the subject should appropriately aspire, since there is a positive relationship in many occupations between the level of responsibility of a job and the complexity of verbally phrased ideas to be compre- hended. NUMERICAL ABILITY (NA) ‘Numerical ability refers to facility in ma- nipulating numbers quickly and accu- rately, in tasks involving. addition, sub- traction, multiplication, division, squar- ing dealing with fractions etc. NA is dis- tinct from both reasoning and mathemati- cal knowledge, and is with the more ba- sic trait of facility and fluency in funda- mental number operations. This ability is generally found high in individuals who are successful in mathematical, scien- tific, and technical subjects. It is a predic- tor of occupations involving computational tasks, such as various clerical, account- ing, engineering, technological, data pro- cessing jobs, etc. The problems to be solved in NA test are not difficult but they have to done in very limited time. Thus, increasing the diffi culty level for rapid calculations. In com- bination with the VA score, both the tests are a good measure of general learning ability SPATIAL ABILITY (SA) Spatial Ability is concerned with perceiv- ing spatial patterns accurately, and fol- lowing the orientation of figures when their position in a plane or space is al- tered. This ability has been extensively studied over the years and has been seen as an indicator of non-verbal, or to some extent, culture-fair intelligence, since its dependence on acculturation and learn- ing is minimal. In DBDA, SA is assessed by items in which the subject must be able to determine quickly whether two- dimensional figures have been merely turned around (rotated) or, they are turned over and rotated (reversed). This ability is found to be high in individuals who are; ft. successful in geometrical drawing, draft ing, vocational training, and in art and design. It is a predictor of occupations involving figural materials, such as thosé dealing with shopwork, architecture, building construction, engineering, con mercial art, dress-designing, die-making, and decoration, etc. The latent feature which operates in SA is that the items require mental ‘manipu- lation of objects in three-dimensional (3- D) space. Thus, SA is a good measure of ability to deal with concrete materials through visualization. There are many tasks in which one is required to imagine how an object would look if made from a given pattern, or how a specified object would appear if rotated in a given way. CLOSURE ABILITY (CA) Closure Ability is primarily a perceptual ability measured by the DBDA. It refers to the ability to see quickly a whole stimu. {us when parts of it are missing, or to “complete the Gestalt.” The principle of closure has been adopted from Gestalt Psychology, which says that the brain tends to fill in gaps in order to perceive fomplete meaningful forms. CAis a speed test assessed by items in which the ex. amine must look at a “mutilated word, \.¢.. a word with parts of the letters miss. ing, decide what the word is, and then find which one of the five jumbied optinns ebells that word when unjumbled. Both worgccting the gestalt of the “mutilated satan d Unjumbling of the letters inthe cbtions tap this ability. CA can be ex. Pected to be relevant to success in courses and occupations involving ebeedy visual perception, such ac those » Computer programming ‘ag 9, art and designing, ete, CLERICAL aBiiry (Ch) Clerical Ability is Perceptual a it i- ctivity pri- marily concerned with Making re evaluations of features of visual stimuli tn OL, the perceptual speed and aggy, racy is measured by items in which’: examinee must rapidly assess {f° sameness or difference of paired grou"? of letters or numbers. The items thus pret vides a series of situations which sine. lates the elements involved in many eter cal jobs. Little or no “higher levers, intellectual difficulty is involved in tne test. But since intelligence or mental ati ity components are adequately Measureg by other tests of this battery, it was qe, cided to include this ability also due to high vocational value of this ability CL is important to success in many tasks involving record-keeping, filing, taking inventories, dispatching, coding, ang other similar jobs. It is relatively less im. portance for most educational purposes, although students who score very low may find it difficult to meet classroom standards of néatness, speed and Preci- sion. A low score on this test fora gener- ally superior subject is likely to indicate his/her emphasis on correctness rather than speed. REASONING ABILITY (Ra) Reasoning Ability refers to the ability to apply the process of induction or to rea. Son from some specific information to a general principle. Here, RA is measured by items requiring the subject to inspect Sels of four letters and discover how four Of the five sets presented embody agen. T2lPrinciple, while the fifth does not. (hus, little of no reliance is placed on gamed material, words. or numbers, 80 that RA scores will be a good indicator of sonverbal, non-culturally biased intelli- Sence. This is one of the most important bematY mental abilities in many tests of general intelligence. The series pre- Sented in each problem item requires the Perception of an ©perating principle in ike sets of letters. In each instance, the sevlect must discover the principie(s) Governing the set of letters and give evi- nace of his understanding by identi felch? Set which does not follow the !os!° followed in other sets,RA is important to success in many areas particularly those that stress logic, such as courses and occupations in mathemat- ics or related pursuits, computer program- ming, engineering, sciences and scien- tific technology MECHANICAL ABILITY (MA) Mechanical Ability refers to an under- standing of basic mechanical principles, simple machines, tools, electrical, and automotive facts. This factor can also be referred to as “Mechanical Information” or Mechanical Experience,” as MA score is dependent to a great extent on ac- quired knowledge and skills in such ar- eas, The items in MA test tap information in all these areas. It has been found use- ful in the prediction of success in training and occupational performance in techni- cal vocational areas. : The ability measured by MA test may be regarded as one aspect of intelligence, if intelligence is broadly defined. The per- son who stands high in this ability finds it easy to learn the principles of operation and repair of complex devices. The score is affected by previous experience of the subject but not to a degree that intro- duces serious difficulties in interpreta tion. The MA test is useful in those cur- ficula and occupations where an appre- ciation of the principles of common physi- cal forces is required. If a student intend- ing to go for higher studies in a physical science field (or in a technical/manual training course) but does not get a good score on MA, he/she is likely to perform poorly in his/her job and find the work difficult. Thus, MA score is relevant for courses and occupations concerned with machin- ery and shop, electrical/electronic tasks, factory, automotive, carpentry, and engi- neering technologies. It is important to realize that MA scores are of less educational and vocational significance for girls than for boys. The mean scores for girls are lower and value of the test for educational or vocational guidance is less clearly established for females. PSYCHO-MOTOR ABILITY (PM) Psycho-motor Ability here refers to pre- cise movements requiring eye-hand co- ordination under highly speeded condi- tions. PM ability can be considered one of fine-muscle dexterity, primarily manual. The test requires the subject to draw finely controlled pencil lines, as quickly as he can, in specially constructed figures. The PM test can also be associ- ated with the MA test, as its importance to success in mechanical-technological en- deavors is well-established. In addition, PM can be expected to be relevant for success in assembly line work, drafting, and clerical jobs.STANDARDIZATION Work on establishing this battery of dif- ferential abilities tests was started a few years ago. At that time a list of various primary mental abilities was prepared. The type of items constructed were in many cases those that had, over the years, been used by psychologists to measure the particular abilities (e.g., vo- cabulary, and spelling items for the ver- bal ability test), but in other instances wholly new assessment methods were devised - as, for example, in some of the spatial and perceptual ability tests. Some principles were rigorously main- tained in the construction of items for this extended version of DBDA. Firstly, the items had to be clearly identified with the appropriate. ability factor and the diffi- culty level was maintained to be aver- age. Secondly, the items had to be inde- pendent of all other abilities except-that Which they were designed to measure. Finally, after the construction of items for all the subtests (approximately twice as many items were constructed as would eventually be needed, to permit rigorous selection of the best items) the tests were subjected to empirical research. In construction of items for the various subtests, two additional considerations were paramount. Firstly, tests were de. veloped in a answer-key-scorable format whenever possible. Secondly, an effort was made to develop tests whose pur. poses were not readily communicable to other subjects who had not taken the tests. The standardization of DBDA-R is based on more than 2500 protocols tested at more than 12 locations throughout the country. Various research scholars, as- sistants and psychologists participated in this standardization. The sample in- cluded school students, college students and normal adults. Table-1 provides a demographic profile of these groups. The primary sampling considerations were geographical locations (mainly town and cities), occupations (to reflect socio-eco- nomic status), and age. Table-4: Demographic Deseription of the Standardization Samples (All figures are given in percentages) Total Schoot Colle ge Normal Sample Students Students Adults Place of Data Collection Eastern Region 16.9 Western Reston aaa 203 are 340 Northern Region 27.4 27.6 : fie Southern Region 17.6 21.4 ace ies Age Mean 22.4 Range 14-30 ait oe ret 14-17 18-22 23-30TECHNICAL INFORMATION ON DBDA-R A. RELIABILITY A very exhaustive and extensive data regarding the reliability and validity of the DBDA-R has been collected and some more is still in the process. The prelimi- nary reliability estimates from this data are derived from the KR-20 formula as a measure of internal consistency. Since all the tests of DBDA-R are speed tests, the KR-20 coefficients are not really ap- propriate. Therefore, the reliability coef- ficlents from other methods (Spl Test-retest) have also been derived and are given in Table-2. Table-2: Rellability Coefficients for DBDA-R Tests es Type of Tests Coefficient VA NA SA CA MA CL = RA PM Split-half 72 82 «4.95 84 69—s«H4 EB KR-20 75.78 ..92 74 62. 89 66 76 Test-Retest 79° 679 B85 7170 BBA “69 B. VALIDITY The concrete validity is taken into con- sideration here. This is an indication of the practical utility of a group of tests that is how well their test scores correlate with other well established tests or relevant criteria. There are two types of concrete validity measures available for reference by the user. These are: 1) correlation with academic achieve- ment, and 2) correlation with IQ scores. 3) Academic Achievement: The relation- ship between DBDA test scores and academic achievement has been stud- ied during the pilot study conducted for this test on high and senior school students. The sample consisted of boys and girls from 9th to 12th stan- dard of various schools, between age groups of 14 to 17 years. The result- ing coefficients are shown in Table-4, 4) Correlation with general intelligence tests: Two main studies have been conducted with established intelli- gence tests to determine the relation- ship between DBDA-R and these tests. The resulting coefficients are shown in Table-3 below: Table-3: Correlation Between DBDA-R Tests and Intelligence Tests Nn RRO Intelligence DBDA Tests Tests VA NA SA CA MA cL RA PM WAIS (Verbal) .57 -62 48 “52 58 65 68 54 16PF (Factor-B) .66 64 52 58 66 69 62 64 Jalota's GMAT 60 65 46 54 51 55 55 44 SS EEES.D. Eng. DBDA Mean Tests (Avg.) (Avg.) CA 10.58 2.50 28 a2 oe aes a6 CL 34.30 * 9.99 18 122 16 12 24 MA 12.97 3.29 .23 42 58 28 35 NA 11.30 2.40 32 .78 53 38 64 PM 33.65 7.80 24 22 31 .29 25 RA 5.77 1.57 32 51 54 -39 52 SA 35.55. 11.72 15 A 32 18 .29 VA 12.68 3.00 56 16 24 46 36 N= 320 320 235 195 203 260BFAD AIUTSS: SRS ADMINISTRATION OF THE BATTERY The instructions for administration of each test of DBDA-R are given specifi- cally and in detail on the booklets of the respective tests. Since, these are all abil- ity tests, the utmost importance is to be given to the timings mentioned for each test on the booklets. A summary regard- ing the timings and number of items of each test is given in Table-5, Table-5: Working Time and Number of Items in Each Test Working Time No. of Items Test VA Part-I 4 mts. 15 Part-I 3 mts. 30 secs. 9 NA 5 mts. 30 secs. 20 SA 6 mts.* 72 cA 5 mts. 20 MA 9 mts. 25 cL 3 mts.* 72 RA 5 mts. 12 PM 5 mts. 70 * time not to be disclosed to the subject. STANDARDIZED TEST INSTRUCTIONS All the tests in DBDA-R should follow a certain procedure, in the interest of maxi- mally standardized measurement. Some general considerations - or points that apply to all the tests are given below followed by specific information for each test. 1) General Considerations: a) Read aloud, and fairly slowly, the in- Struction page for each test, as the subject(s) read the page siléntly to themselves. For each test, announce: Read the instructions for this test to yourself while | read them aloud. Pause where example appear, to al- . low the subjects some time to think through the examples. b) After the complete instructions have been read, ask the subjects: Are there any questions before you begin? Clarify instructions or doubts at this point, if necessary, subjects may re- read parts of the instructions and re- view the examples, but no new ex- amples should be given. ¢) After answering questions on the in- structions, the examiner should an- nounce: All right, turn the page and begin. (The words here are altered in. some tests, and this is made clear in the specific instructions for each test be- low.) Allow about 5 seconds for turning the page, and then begin timing, When the time is up, announce in a firm voice: ‘Stop working now. Please put your pen- cils down and turn the booklet immedi- ately. Be sure that the subjects do not con- tinue to work. - d) Follow working times strictly. USE A STOPWATCH OR A TEST TIMER. This fact is extremely important for all the tests. The working time is disclosed for all the tests except SA and CL, as summarized in Table - 5 earlier. The 12examiner should be sure he knows the time allotted to a test before he gives the signal to start. For SA and CL, itis important that the working time not informed to the subjects. If an enquiry is made regarding the time for these tests, he/she should be replied: Persons taking this test are not given the working time. Please continue to work until told to stop. The timings for SA and CL are not disclosed to the subject, in order to assess the speed and accuracy under high anxiety states. ©) Emphasize that the directions such as ~ not going on to a PART-II or the next Page until told do so are to be strictly adhered to. In a group testing situa- tion, the examiner, or an assistant, should unobtrusively walk around the room to see that the subjects do not turn the page when they finish the test. 1) Before beginning the battery, the ex- aminer should encourage the subjects to do their best by stressing the impor- tance of the tests in determining what each person's strength are, and which area/course is best suited for him/her. Subjects should be reassured that they are not expected to get every item cor. rect. 0 to 30 seconds break between 9 ote. This Is best done after the exam. inees have been told to stop working on a given test, and turn to the instruc. tions for the next test. At this point (when examinees no longer have the test in which they were working in front, of them) allow them the 20 to 30 sec. onds to relax, before beginning the next set of instructions. 2) Specific Instructions for all DBDA Tests: a) Mark only one box for an item. Items for which more than one box is marked will not be counted. If you need an- other pencil, etc. at any time, raise your hand. b) In all the tests, you will answer a ques- tion by choosing the best option among the several. Even if you don’t know the fight answer for a particular item, try to narrow down the choices as much as Possible and then mark the option that is your best guess.