A comparison of the performance of Mexican-American children on the Spanish translation of the WISC-R with the original WISC-R standardization sample.

Abstract

The hypothesis of this study was that there is no significant difference between the performance of Mexican-American children, when tested by the WISC-R in Spanish, and that of the population of children in the United States upon which the WISC-R was standardized. The Spanish adaptation of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC-R 1974) under study by The Psychological Corporation, New York, was used as the instrument of measurement. The sample consisted of eighty-one Mexican-American children of eight, nine, and ten years of age attending school in the cities of Wichita, Garden City, and Goodland, Kansas. The Verbal Performance and Full Scale lOs of the Mexican-Americans were computed using the WISC-R English version norms. The Verbal Performance and Full Scale means were computed for the eighty-one Mexican Americans and compared with the standardization sample by a t-test procedure. Significant differences were found in these comparisons. For comparison of the subtests with the standardization sample a t-test for correlated observations was conducted at each age level. There was no significant difference found between the Mexican-Americans and the standardization sample on Comprehension at all age levels and the Arithmetic subtest at age ten. There was no significant difference on Picture Arrangement at the three age levels. The conclusions pointed out that the subtests which require a process of social interaction, familiarity with environmental objects, and formal educational background were the ones in which the Mexican-Americans perform with significant difference from the standardization sample.