Identifying General Factors of Intelligence: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Ball Aptitude Battery

Abstract

Research supports a hierarchical factor structure of intelligence that is consistent with the second-order factor model proposed by Gustafsson in which five first-order factors yield a single second-order factor of General Intelligence (g). Gustafsson’s model was tested with structural equation modeling via the Ball Aptitude Battery (BAB), a measure of aptitudes and vocational interests. This study focuses on the tests from the BAB that are believed to measure various aspects of intelligence: Numerical Computation, Numerical Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Analytical Reasoning, Paper Folding, Idea Fluency, Idea Generation, Vocabulary, Associative Memory, Auditory Memory, Clerical, and Writing Speed. Results indicate that the factor structure of the BAB is consistent with Gustafsson’s second-order factor model of intelligence. Implications of this finding are discussed.

Structural Models of Abilities Measured by the Ball Aptitude Battery

“…(Test descriptions can be found in The Ball Foundation, 2002.) The item content of these BAB subtests was very similar or identical to the subtests reported in Neuman et al (2000). Our structural hypotheses for BAB/CAB combination battery appear in Table 1, and the meanings of the factors appear in Table 2.…”

Universals and specifics of math self-concept, math self-efficacy, and math anxiety across 41 PISA 2003 participating countries

“…The conventional threshold values for a good model fit were numbers greater than .90 for CFI and .95 for TLI. For RMSEA, values smaller than .05 were considered ideal and smaller than .08 were acceptable (for a detailed description of these thresholds, refer to Bollen & Long, 1993, and for a description of how these indexes can be used, refer to Newman, Bolin, & Briggs, 2000). With multiple-group CFA, a series of nested models were tested to explore the measurement and population invariance across countries.…”

Genetic and environmental influences on human psychological differences

“…(1993). More recent studies include Bickley et al (1995), Aluja-Fabregat et al (2000), and Neuman et al (2000). The hierarchical factor structure is highly similar if not identical across diverse ethnic groups within industrialized populations as well as across the two sexes (Carretta and Ree, 1995).…”