The performance of a multilingual South African sample on two measures of nonverbal assessment

The aim of this investigation was to determine how different South African population groups perform on nonverbal measures of intelligence. The specific aim of this investigation was to examine the predictive validity of the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) using a group administered achievement test Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). Students selected for the present study were eight-and-nine-year-old school children currently enrolled in third (N = 200) and fourth (N = 200) grade classes. All four racial (White, Indian, Coloured and Black) groups were represented in the present study. Within-and-intergroup comparisons were made.;Two instruments were used for this study: The NNAT and the SAT. The NNAT is comprised of 38 multiple choice (5 options) items of the types found in the Raven's Progressive Matrice and is intended to be group administered. The Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) is a nonverbal achievement test and is group or individually administered from Kindergarten through 12th grade. The Stanford Achievement Test consist of 12 subtests. However, in the present study only two subtests (Reading vocabulary and Concepts of number) were administered.;In the present study, reported results of the NNAT within each group showed no statistically significant differences. Thus, gender did not play a significant role in the overall performances of the different racial groups. Intergroup comparisons between the scores of the different racial groups reported results that displayed a statistically significant difference at each grade level. Significant correlations were found between the NNAT and SAT for all different racial groups.;The investigator's findings revealed a significant relationship between socioeconomic status and the performance of the different racial groups. A reported feature of the NNAT is its "culture-free" quality. Cross-cultural assessment is a complex process that has yet to be adequately and vigorously tackled. In order to make such a proclamation of "culture-free", at the very least, one must present data from numerous cultures and then limit the findings to these cultures only.