Psychometric evaluation of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II) in rural South Africa
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Millions of children living in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not fulfilling their cognitive potential.Early interventions may aid in alleviating the effects of risk factors and thus promote cognitive development.To determine the effectiveness of these interventions, accurate measures of cognitive development are necessary.Measuring the intelligence of children in LMICs has often been contentious, as traditional intelligence quotient (IQ) assessments have largely been used.Traditional IQ assessments measure acquired knowledge that is known to be biased towards school exposure.Recently, given improvements in our understanding of the human brain, there has been a shift towards using assessments that measure cognitive processing, i.e. the skill-set necessary to solve tasks.Given their ability to measure cognitive potential to learn, rather than acquired learning, these assessments are deemed more culture fair.The KABC-II is an example of such an assessment and is increasingly used in LMICs.The KABC-II consists of four scale indexes evaluating performance (Sequential, Learning, Simultaneous and Planning) and has often been translated and adapted for these contexts.However, studies examining the psychometric properties of these adapted assessments are sparse.The primary aim of this research was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a translated and adapted version of the KABC-II in a sample of healthy, isiZulu-speaking children of primary school-age in rural South Africa.The evaluation was achieved through two objectives; firstly by evaluating performance on the adapted KABC-II and secondly through examining whether the underlying structure of the KABC-II was maintained.Using data from a sub-sample of 382 children (part of a larger project), performance on the KABC-II was evaluated using descriptive statistics.The underlying factor structure of the battery was examined using confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses.
Author: Joanie Mitchell
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2284550860