Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition is an outstanding tool for measuring a child’s intelligence and cognitive capacity, because it covers a wide range of general factors of intelligence. However, the test does possess a number of issues regarding its three general factors, which are crystallized intelligence (Gc), processing speed (Gs), and fluid reasoning (Gf). Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition primarily uses common questions for measuring Gc, visual tasks for Gs, and quantitative reasoning for Gf.
Each of these approaches contain a certain set of limitation, such high dependence on mathematical skills and outstanding visual perception alongside a strong basis of understanding and identifying common knowledge. Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition needs to minimize the influence of outside factors in order to acquire accurate and precise measurements of a child’s cognitive development and intelligence.
Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition: Critique
Assessing a child’s cognitive abilities is an important aspect of intelligence tests, which are primarily designed to analyze the overall cognitive skills development from a multitude of angles. Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition is 2001’s revised version of intelligence test created by Mary Johnson and Richard Woodcock. It is an ideal educational assessment tool for covering a wide range of cognitive skills, such as comprehension, fluid reasoning, and speed. However, there are major limitations of the given test regarding in-depth analysis of a child’s development, because the assessment of each aspect is frivolous. Most importantly, Gf heavily relies on child’s mathematical skills, Gs is influenced by visual perception, and Gc needs a strong basis on general knowledge.
Background
Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition evaluates and rates the outcome of the test based on seven general factor elements. These are Gf, Gv, Gs, Glr, Ga, Gsm, and Gc (Navarro, 2010). Gf refers to fluid reasoning, which determines whether a child’s cognitive capacity is flexible or not. In addition, it plays a major role in one’s problem solving capability due to the fact that such problems usually differ from one another.
Gs is a general factor of processing speed, and thus, the critical component is timeframe within which a child needs to complete a specific task. Gv is refers to visual-spatial ability of child and the tests are designed to assess visualization skills via asking for figures and shapes. Glr measures a subject’s long term retrieval, which is directly associated with memory and depth of comprehension. Ga refers to auditory processing, where the main goal is to measure a child’s listening skills and auditory analysis.
Gsm is general factor of short term memory, which primarily focuses on assessing a subject’s overall capacity to retain new information. The main goal is to test his or her maximum amount of information that can be held for a short duration. Gc or general factor of crystallized intelligence and comprehension knowledge, which can be considered as an acquired intelligence, because it measures a subject’s accumulated knowledge and cognitive skills. However, the given critique will mainly focus on three most essential general factors, such as Gs, Gf, and Gc.
Crystallized Intelligence
The general factor of comprehension knowledge and crystallized intelligence is an important aspect of measuring a child’s accumulated knowledge and skills. The main reason is the fact that it allows to observe and separate the inherited component of intelligence from the acquired one. However, there are a number of limitations regarding the given general factor, such as identifying the common norm of knowledge and assessing the basic skills.
It is stated that a child’s interests and skills are tightly interlinked and can be influenced by the parenting process (Srinath et al, 2019). In addition, it is highly challenging to design tests, which evaluate the overall crystallized intelligence in fairly and equal manner, because societal and cultural background can lead to the development of different set of skills. The final estimation can be faulty due to inability establish the general norm for comprehension knowledge and Gc.
Therefore, a child can express a lagging cognitive development primarily because the test dismissed and failed to assess the majority of his or her acquired set of skills and knowledge. Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition measures Gc mostly through listening, speaking, and writing tests, where a child asked about general information, basics of science, and comprehension of short passages (Strickland et al., 2015). The main problem lies in the first two sections, where the questions needs to be constructed in such a way that they must be general and not specific for all subjects regardless of their background.
A child who grew up in countryside might know more about farming and agriculture than a child living in the city. In addition, the general occupation of the parents can directly affect a child’s general knowledge about science, economics, and politics. Therefore, Gc segment of Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition requires a strong and solid research basis on the statistical norms and commonalities of knowledge and comprehension. In addition, it needs to cover a maximum range of one’s crystallized intelligence in order to avoid dismissing certain parts of it.
Processing Speed
The speed of comprehension and understanding is another major part of assessing a child’s cognitive abilities. Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition mostly includes visual tests, where a subject need to quickly find similar patterns or name a series of images. The main problem is the fact that Gs measurements are highly dependent on child’s visual perception. Firstly, any eye-related medical conditions can heavily influence the overall outcome of a test. For example, prolonged eye stress can reduce a person’s ability for rapid eye movements, which will inevitably affect the test results (Van den Berg et al., 2015). A given test may have different didactic qualities in relation to different readers. Making classic learning aids personalized is an important part of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition.
Secondly, taking into account these nuances in the system for diagnosing the speed of understanding text and drawings will help assess the quality of paper and electronic information materials developed for the educational process. Of particular importance is the developed method for the industry of interactive electronic textbooks, which adapt to the perception and understanding of the information of the child.
For example, the use of three-dimensional text technology allows the reader, at his discretion, to extract hidden information from the third dimension, to adapt the text to his or her thesaurus. The design of such three-dimensional textbooks is conveniently carried out, based on the results of diagnostic studies of the speed of perception and understanding of the text. Thus, this criterion is the speed of understanding the text, allows you to evaluate the quality and speed of understanding from the standpoint of personality-oriented measurements.
Fluid Reasoning
Fluidity of reasoning and Gf can be considered as one of the most important aspects of intelligence, because it determines a child’s flexibility in comprehension and problem solving. This general factor does not need to include one’s background as a major influencer, because most tasks come up as novelties, which require creative approach to solve them. The lack or underdevelopment of fluid reasoning can lead to slower learning process, because a student cannot quickly adjust to new information and pattern of thinking.
Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition assesses a child’s fluid reasoning through quantitative approaches mathematical and numerical tasks are given in order to find new patterns or sequences (Strickland et al., 2015). The critical feature of the assessment of fluid reasoning is the fact that it does not rely on child’s ability to speak, write, or read (Otero, 2017). This means that the final measurement is more accurate, because it minimizing the outside influence. However, the test only uses quantitative approach to assess a child’s Gf, and thus, mathematical skills of a subjects heavily influences the outcome.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important to understand that Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability III Edition aims to assess all aspects of intelligence and cognitive capacity of a child. It contains seven general factors of intelligence, where Gs, Gc, and Gf can be considered as the most critical and problematic ones. The test assesses crystalized intelligence by designing common and general questions, which should be relatable to everyone.
However, parenting and background can heavily affect a subject’s awareness of these common tasks. Gs heavily relies on visual perception of a child, which means that he or she cannot fully express the given aspect of cognitive ability with stressed or poor eye functionality. Gf is one the most determining factors of creativity and flexibility of child’s thinking and comprehension. The test primarily uses quantitative approach, which is highly dependent on a child’s mathematical skills.
References
Navarro, F. H. (2010). The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability, Third Edition. Web.
Otero, T. M. (2017). Brief review of fluid reasoning: Conceptualization, neurobasis, and applications. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 6(3), 204-211.
Srinath, S., Jacob, P., Sharma, E., & Gautam, A. (2019). Clinical practice guidelines for assessment of children and adolescents. Indian journal of psychiatry, 61(2), 158-175.
Strickland, T., Watkins, M. W., & Caterino, L. C. (2015). Structure of the Woodcock–Johnson III cognitive tests in a referral sample of elementary school students. Psychological Assessment, 27(2), 689-697.
Van den Berg, D. P. G., de Bont, P. A. J. M., van der Vleugel, B. M., de Roos, C., de Jongh, A., Minnen, A. V., & van der Gaag, M. (2015). Prolonged exposure vs eye movement desensitization and reprocessing vs waiting list for posttraumatic stress disorder in patients with a psychotic disorder: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(3), 259-267.