2. What is Intelligence? Constitutive Definition: The ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria defines as intelligence Operational Definition: The authors define intelligence as Spearman’s g and fluid intelligence.
3. Intelligence Tests The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003); Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, FourthEdition (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, 2008); Stanford-BinetIntelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (Roid, 2003); Woodcock-Johnson Test of Cognitive Abilities (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001); Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, Fourth Edition (TONI-4; Brown, Sherbenou, & Johnsen, 2010); Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (Bracken & McCallum, 1997)
4. Test Description Published by PRO-ED located in Austin, Texas Measures general intelligence. Ideal for populations with language, hearing, motor impairment, or that are unfamiliar with mainstream American culture Not intended to test individuals with visual impairments Test administrators need some formal training. Test administrators also need a fundamental understanding of mental ability testing and measurement.
5. Purpose of TONI-4 General intellectual functioning Intellectual impairment Treatment, therapy or special services Hypothesis
6. Specific Description Age Range: 6 years 0 month through 89 years 11 months. The first 19 questions are for ages 6 to 9 years, and the remaining questions are for ages 10 and older. The time to finish the test is 15 minutes. Every correct response is scored as 1 point, and incorrect response is scored as 0 point.
7. Scoring Basal: The highest level at which an individual scores five consecutive correct responses. Ceiling: The third error out of five consecutive responses.
8. Types of Scores Index Scores: Mean is 100 and SD is 15. Percentiles Age Equivalents Descriptive Terms The manual provides a corresponding descriptive rating with each index score interval.
11. Added 6 items for a total of 60 items which reduced the floor and ceiling effects
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14. Three dichotomous groups were compared by effect sizes. (e.g. male vs. female, African American vs. non-African American, and Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic)
17. Strengths Evidence of decrease in cultural and language factors Addition of verbal instructions New normative data collected and stratified Addition of 6 items to increase difficulty Items reordered to balance forms Test duration relatively short
18. Weaknesses Normative sample tested with English version Stratification into subgroups Exceptionality subgroup Sample size of certain reliability and validity determinants Scorers are not independent
19. Recommendations Good alternative to verbal intelligence tests Diagnose intellectual impairments in individuals whose performance may be confounded by language, cultural, or physical impairments Verify referrals for special services
Notas del editor
Let me depict the technical adequacy of TONI4.TONI4 is to estimate the examinee’s ability of solving problem with reasonable artifice but not necessarily with language or motor skills, so each item includes conspicuous features such as shape position, direction, rotation, shading, size, and movement. The more difficult , the more complicated types and the more number of rules the item has.Each form of A and B has totally 60 items by adding at the beginning and the end of the test to reduce floor and ceiling effects, and the two forms were equally allocated in item similarity and difficulty by sorting all items in difficulty.If you have three errors within five successive items , the last number of incorrect answer is ceiling item.On the other hand if five successive correct responses, the last number is the floor itemIF a test taker can not understand what expectation is from the test after two times of training items, the test should be ceased Otherwise, when a ceiling item appears, it should be discontinued.
In order for Item analysis, we have usually two theoretical approaches.The first is based on conventional theory which has item discrimination and item difficulty.In TONI4, a point-biserial correlation between each item and the test performance as the whole was employed for the item discrimination and the results showed persuasive degree of the positive item validity.And also as for item difficulty, it ranges from 15% to 85% and has average 50% with evenly spread distribution.While the conventional item analysis is based on the test-level, the item response theory focuses on item itself.Based on IRT, the logistic regression was tested to all items. For the research analysis with binary or categorical outcomes like test item analysis rather than continuous outcomes, the logistic regression is used.And through the comparison of three pair-wise groups such as male VS female, African American VS non-African American, and Hispanic VS non-Hispanic by effect sizes of each pair, the biased items were discerned and the items of large effect sizes more than .069 were excluded. The degree more than .034 and less than .070 of the effect sizes are moderate.
In order for standardization sample, the sample size is 2,272 extracted from 31 states, and the subjects for main testing were from South, West, Midwest, and Northeast, while the subjects for the minor testing were from the whole of 31 sates. All samplings were conducted by experienced and trained specialists.For the test administrations, English instruction was used for 77% of the normative sample, and nonverbal instruction was used for the rest.Sampling distribution was substantially extended to ethnicity, race, gender, location, parental education, and SES which significantly influence cognitive ability.And also in order to enhance the sample representative, the stratification by categorizing sample at each age interval was used.
Test-retest reliability (n=63) - 1 to 2 weeksConstruct validity3 achievement tests Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF; Mather, Hammill, Allen, & Roberts, 2004) Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency (TOSCRF; Hammill, Wiederholt, & Allen 2006) Woodcock-Johnson II Tests of Achievement (WJ III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001)
The TONI-4 has several strengths. The TONI-4 decreases the cultural and language factors that often influence verbal based intelligence tests. The manual provides verbal and nonverbal instructions and the appropriate contexts in which to use one over the other. The manual has also added several major non-English languages for non-English examinees that do not need nonverbal instructions. New normative data was collected and stratified to appropriately represent the United States population at the time of the study. The TONI-4 added 6 items which increased item difficulty to address previous concerns about testing individuals classified as gifted and talented. These additional items also improved floor of both forms. The test items were also reordered and sorted to create more balanced across the two different forms. The manual provides clear and easy follow instructions to administer the test. The administration of the TONI-4 takes a relatively small amount of time. The authors provide age equivalents due the prevalent use, but caution the use of age equivalents when scoring.
Although there are many strengths, the TONI-4 is imperfect. One weakness is the majority of participants in the normative sample were assessed using the English verbal instructions while a very small percentage of the participants were given the test using nonverbal instructions. The authors emphasize the TONI-4 removes confounding factors that influence verbal-based intelligence tests, but only test 23% of the participants with the nonverbal format. Of the 77% of participants taking the verbal format, none of the participants were administered the non-English verbal formats of the test. Although the sample is stratified across many characteristics, the ratio of children to adults and sample size means a sample as small as six people may represent a particular subgroup. The authors emphasize the value of this test in populations with exceptionality status. However, 13% of the children represented in the standardized sample have a disability, while only 7% of the adults were identified as having a disability. Although these percentages represent the U.S. population, additional participants with disabilities would benefit in supporting the authors claims that the test is useful with such populations. Although additional evidence of reliability and validity is provided for the normative sample, certain reliability and validity determinants were acquired using much smaller samples. Using the standardization sample to determine all types of reliability and validity would be a valuable additional to the current evidence. Two members of the publisher’s test development staff were used to test interscorer reliability. A study using scorers independent of the test publisher to estimate interscorer reliability would eliminate any concerns of scorer partiality.
Overall, the TONI-4 is a user friendly test and can be efficiently administered to multi-cultural and physical impaired populations with exception of visually impaired individuals. The TONI-4 is a good alternative to other intelligence tests for schools with diverse student populations. There is some evidence that the test measures intelligence without confounding verbal and cultural factors influencing test results. Professionals are encouraged to use the TONI-4 for estimating aptitude and general intelligence functioning, diagnosing intellectual impairments particularly in individuals whose performance may be confounded by language, cultural, or physical impairments, verifying referrals for special services, or conducting research.
