Factorial Invariance of Woodcock-Johnson III Scores for African Americans and Caucasian Americans

Abstract

Bias in testing has been of interest to psychologists and other test users since the origin of testing. New or revised tests often are subject to analyses that help examine the degree of bias in reference to group membership based on gender, language use, and race/ethnicity. The pervasive use of intelligence test data when making critical and, at times, life-changing decisions warrants the need by test developers and test users to examine possible test bias on new and recently revised intelligence tests. This study investigates factorial invariance and criterion-related validity of the Woodcock-Johnson III for African American and Caucasian American students. Data from this study suggest that although their mean scores differ, Woodcock-Johnson III scores have comparable meaning for both groups.