Could test length or order affect scores on letter number sequencing of the WAIS-III and WMS-III? Ruling out effects of fatigue

Factor Structure and Criterion-Related Validity of the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test Form T for Pilot Applicants

The Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) is the primary selection tool for officer applicants in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) for nearly seven decades. The AFOQT is revised and modified periodically, with rigorous equating and linking effort to ensure comparability and connectivity across forms. The most recent version of AFOQT is Form T that includes 10 cognitive ability and knowledge subtests. Despite the continuing validation effort of the AFOQT across forms, it was mostly directed to the general population of officer applicants, but not to any specific subpopulation. The current investigation reported three studies in an attempt to provide evidence for factor structure and criterion-related validity of AFOQT Form T for pilot applicants via four analytical approaches: meta-analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results suggested that AFOQT Form T data are best represented by a bifactor model with a general ability and four specific abilities, and that each latent construct has a distinct predictive utility for pilot performance criteria.

Cognitive Differences for Ages 16 to 89 Years (Canadian WAIS-III)

Adult cognitive age differences in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—III Canadian normative data were curvilinear for most scales and for the Verbal Comprehension (VC), Perceptual Organization (PO), and Working Memory (WM) factors. These showed stable or increasing scores in early adulthood followed by decreasing scores, necessitating a nonlinear (continuous parameter estimation) approach to modeling adult age differences. Means were as high as or higher than the 18-year-olds until 60 years for PO and 70 years for WM and VC. As the means showed no interpretable differences across 20 to 30 years of adult cohorts, no one year can be identified as the highest scoring. “What If” analyses correcting for possible Flynn effects and for the hypothesis that changes in Processing Speed may underlie some of the age differences suggest that further testing of these two effects is a necessary prerequisite to advancing our understanding of adult age differences.

The joint WAIS-III and WMS-III factor structure: development and cross-validation of a six-factor model of cognitive functioning

During the standardization of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (3rd ed.; WAIS-III) and the Wechsler Memory Scale (3rd ed.; WMS-III) the participants in the normative study completed both scales. This "co-norming" methodology set the stage for full integration of the 2 tests and the development of an expanded structure of cognitive functioning. Until now, however, the WAIS-III and WMS-III had not been examined together in a factor analytic study. This article presents a series of confirmatory factor analyses to determine the joint WAIS-III and WMS-III factor structure. Using a structural equation modeling approach, a 6-factor model that included verbal, perceptual, processing speed, working memory, auditory memory, and visual memory constructs provided the best model fit to the data. Allowing select subtests to load simultaneously on 2 factors improved model fit and indicated that some subtests are multifaceted. The results were then replicated in a large cross-validation sample (N = 858).