A study of the use of two intelligence tests with Maltese children in year 5

Abstract

The 2 tests were carried out on 507 subjects (239 boys & 268 girls), coming from 11 schools of mixed sexes and abilities in Year 5, 50 of which were retested for reliability study in the RCM. At our disposal we had the following information: the DAM and RCM raw scores; school attainment examination results and date of birth. A minimal correlation of 0.29 was registered between the two tests. However though both tests, to a certain measure intelligence and are valid, the RCM proved to be more reliable as shown in the test-retest correlation coefficient of 0.96. The higher the RCM score, the better the school attainment. A very low mean raw score of 34.69 was registered in the DAM due to clear inhibitions. Contrary to our expectations, profile drawing occured mostly in boys of below-average ability, while as expected, sketching occured in boys of above-average ability. The older always registered the lowest results, due to the fact that this group consisted mainly of repeaters. While boys were markedly superior to girls in the RCM, girls obtained better results in school attainment and DAM.