Administration and Scoring Errors on the WISC-IV Among Graduate Student Examiners

Abstract

A total of 51 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) protocols, administered by graduate students in training, were examined to obtain data describing the frequency of examiner errors and the impact of errors on resultant test scores. Present results were generally consistent with previous research examining graduate students' errors on the previous two editions of the WISC. Students committed errors on 98% of the protocols examined and averaged 25.8 errors per protocol. The most common errors were failure to query verbal responses, assigning too many points to an answer, and failure to record an examinee's response on the test protocol. Errors resulted in inaccurate test composite scores, with the Full Scale IQ and Verbal Comprehension Index most frequently affected. Error rates did not improve significantly over the course of three practice administrations.

Subtestes semelhanças, vocabulário e compreensão do WISC-III: pontuação objetiva ou subjetiva?

“…O manual contém a orientação de que dois pontos devem ser atribuídos a respostas que dão idéia de proteção e de situação em que se usa o objeto, tal como "Mantém a pessoa seca quando chove". Os dados confirmam, em parte, os estudos de Belk et al (2002) e Loe et al (2007), que encontraram uma tendência dos avaliadores em superestimar os escores dos subtestes verbais.…”

“…Por outro lado, como ponto positivo, destaca-se a amplitude do estudo, ou seja, o aumento do número de avaliadores, da abrangência geográfica, e da quantidade de protocolos analisados, quando comparado aos procedimentos utilizados nos trabalhos consultados (Belk et al, 2002;Loe et al, 2007;Sherman & Taylor, 2001;Simões et al, 2000;Wechsler, 1991).…”

“…As pesquisas apontam que grande parte do percentual de erros encontrados no WISC-III e WISC-IV são cometidos na fase de pontuação, com tendência a superestimar os escores (Belk, LoBello, Ray, & Zachar, 2002;Loe, Kadlubek, & Marks, 2007 (Wechsler, 2002) a autora da adaptação aponta a necessidade de desenvolver estudos relativos à precisão na pontuação. Por essa razão, o presente estudo teve como objetivo identificar o nível de concordância entre os avaliadores na tarefa de pontuar itens dos três subtestes que exigem maior julgamento dos avaliadores.…”

Practical Issues in WISC-V Administration and Scoring

“…Similarly, most practitioners feel very familiar with them based on their years of experience, as the basic structure of the rules is consistent across the Wechsler tests. Despite this emphasis, mistakes in this area represent some of the more commonly made errors on the Wechsler intelligence scales (Belk et al, 2002;Loe, Kadlubek, & Marks, 2007). Graduate students often start at the incorrect items, fail to establish basal sets, discontinue subtest administration too early, and forget to give credit to items prior to the start point.…”

“…Examiners and graduate students often forget to record completion time for subtests like Arithmetic, verbatim responses for Verbal Comprehension subtests like Vocabulary, and responses for subtests that do not require verbal responses like Matrix Reasoning or Block Design (Loe et al, 2007). Recording this information is best practice for several reasons.…”