Ability patterns of White and Black adults as determined by the subscales on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate one primary research question. Do Black and White adults differ in ability patterns, independent of any overall score differences, as determined by the 11 substests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R)? The WAIS-R national standardization sample of 1880 adults provided the subjects for the study. Groups of 177 Black adults and 177 White adults were drawn from the WAIS-R standardization sample and matched on the basis of age (in the same age group), sex, and Full Scale IQ (within one standard error of measurement, about 3 IQ points). This matching procedure was used in order to provide an accurate, overall level-free picture of the differences in the pattern of performance between White and Black adults. A multivariate analysis of variance using the 11 WAIS-R subtests as dependent measures indicated that the pattern of subtest means did not differ significantly between Whites and Blacks. Whites scored higher on six subtests and Blacks scored higher on five. However, the only statistically significant difference was found for the Block Design subtest, in which the White group scored higher than the Black group. The point-biserial correlation describing the bivariate relationship between race and each of the 11 WAIS-R subtests indicated only the Block Design subtest as significantly correlated, with Whites scoring higher than Blacks on the subtest. Factor loadings for the unrotated general factor and the first two varimax rotated factors, as well as communalities and reliabilities for each subtest are reported. The first varimax rotated factor is interpreted as a Verbal factor, being defined by the Information, Digit Span, Vocabulary, Arithmetic, Comprehension, and Similarities subtests. The second varimax rotated factor appears to be a performance factor being defined by Picture Completion, Picture Arrangement, Block Design, Object Assembly, and the Digit Symbol subtests. Coefficients of congruence were calculated between the Black and White samples for the first principal factor and the two varimax rotated factors. The results indicated a very high degree of similarity between the factor structure for Blacks and Whites on the WAIS-R.