Objectivity of scoring for the McCarthy drawing tests

Two doctoral level school psychologists independently scored 50 McCarthy drawing booklets. Children producing the drawings ranged from 4–6 to 6–10, with a mean age of 5–11. Interscorer reliability for Draw-A-Design was.93 and for Draw-A-Child was.96. No significant difference occurred in the mean score for either test across scorers.     

McCarthy scales,McCarthy screening test,and Kaufman's McCarthy short form correlations with the Peabody Individual Achievement Test

In this investigation, the relationships between the McCarthy Scales General Cognitive Index, the McCarthy Screening Test, Kaufman's McCarthy short form, and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test were examined. The sample included 39 children randomly selected from four classes in an elementary school. Results indicated that the Estimated General Cognitive Index by Kaufman's short form was virtually identical to the McCarthy Scales (full form) Index. The McCarthy Scales, McCarthy Screening Test, and Kaufman's short form all correlated significantly (p=.01) with the Peabody Individual Achievement Test, with the exception of the McCarthy Motor Scale. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the Peabody Total Test/Kaufman McCarthy short form correlation of.55 and the Peabody Total Test/McCarthy Screening Test correlation of.54 (t=0.09). Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Factor structure of the McCarthy scales

The purpose of the present study was to test the factor structure of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities in preschool children. Seventy-two boys and 69 girls between 4 and 5 years of age were tested. A factor analysis was carried out by means of the principal components method with varimax rotation. The existence of the Verbal factor and of the Perceptual-Performance factor was confirmed. The Quantitative and Memory factors appear undifferentiated. As far as the subtests which make up the Motor scale are concerned, they do not constitute a single factor. The significance of these findings is discussed.     

The McCarthy scales and Kaufman's McCarthy short form correlations with the comprehensive test of basic skills

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the predictive validity of Kaufman's short form version of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for samples of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Mexican-American children. Comparisons of the observed correlations between the McCarthy General Cognitive Index (GCI) and Kaufman's estimated GCI with academic achievement (as measured by the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills) showed that the conventional McCarthy and Kaufman's short form predicted achievement about equally well. Implication of this finding was discussed in light of supportive evidence for the validity of the Kaufman short form and in the context of screening of culturally diverse children.     

Factor structure of the McCarthy screening test

The factor structure of the McCarthy Screening Test was investigated with a sample of 555 children. The sample consisted of 300 boys and 255 girls, whose mean age was 61.4 months; approximately 80% were white and 20% were black. The data from the present study and from the MST standardization samples were analyzed by a principal components analysis (with ones in the diagonal) followed by a varimax rotation. The results from the data analysis seem to indicate that the subtests all measure parts of the same attribute (cognitive and sensorimotor functions) in varying degrees.     

Cross-validation of the factor structure of the McCarthy scales for kindergarten children

This study was designed to cross-validate the factor structure of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for children 5 to 6 1/2 years of age. A factor analysis was performed on a group of 105 children with a mean General Cognitive Index (GCI) of 115.42. The subjects ranged in age from 4–11 to 6–7 with a mean age of 5–6. The age variable was partialled from each score using multiple regression procedures. Five factors were generated, including Verbal Comprehension, Quantitative-Reasoning, Memory, Perceptual-Performance, and Motor factors. These data were subsequently compared to Kaufman's factor analytic studies with the McCarthy standardization group, and to the scale structure of the instrument. In general, the overall factor pattern of this study provides further evidence of the construct validity of the McCarthy Scales for kindergarten children.     

Factor structure of the McCarthy Scales for Children experiencing problems in school

The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) were factor analyzed for a group of 6- to 8 1/2-year-old children referred for school-related problems. The sample was composed of 300 rural eastern North Carolina public school children with a mean GCI of 88.1. Evidence was found for factors similar to three of the six MSCA Scales: General Cognitive, Verbal, and Motor. Coefficients of congruence were computed and compared with earlier analyses of the standardization data. The results were interpreted as generally supporting the MSCA's validity with children experiencing problems in school. Implications for interpretation of the MSCA Scales were presented.     

Early kindergarten identification of academically not-ready children by use of human figure drawing developmental score

The Koppitz Human Figure Drawing (HFD) Test was examined for use in early identification of academically not-ready kindergarten children. HFD developmental scores of a group of children who later “passed” the Metroplitan Readiness Test (stanine score ≥4), as required for admission to the first-grade classroom, were compared with the HFD scores of a group of children who later “failed” the Metropolitan Readiness Test (stanine score ≤3). Evaluation of the test data showed that the optimum HFD score cut-off point for prediction of nonreadiness was ≤3; 42% of the nonready and 90% of the ready children, as defined by the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MTR) score criterion, were correctly identified. An overall hit rate of 75% was obtained on the experimental population. The work indicates that HFD developmental scores are useful for early identification of the academically not-ready kindergarten child.     

Race and sex differences on the McCarthy Screening Test

MST scores were analyzed to determine race and sex differences on the six subtests. The sample consisted of 971 five- and six-year-old children. Differences in performance between males and females were found on the Verbal Memory and Leg Coordination subtests. Differences between white and nonwhite children were found on the Verbal Memory and Numerical Memory subtests.     

Comparison of the predictive validities of two McCarthy short forms

Scores on Kaufman's (1977) McCarthy short form and the McCarthy Screening Test (1978) were obtained for a sample of 53 first graders in their first month of school. Nine months later, the Metropolitan Achievement Test was administered to the sample. The correlation between Kaufman's estimated General Cognitive Index and the Metropolitan Basic Battery raw score was .71. Biserial correlations between “At Risk” and “Not At Risk” classifications of the McCarthy Screening Test and Metropolitan Basic Battery raw scores ranged from .43 to .78. Kaufman's short form scores usually indicated a smaller number of false negatives than did McCarthy Screening Test scores. Implications of these findings for these findings for first-grade screening are discussed.     

Interpreting the profile of McCarthy scale indexes: A revision

Silverstein's approach to the interpretation of test profiles was applied to the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities. This resulted in differences required for significance that are two points greater than those suggested by Kaufman and Kaufman.     

Stability of the McCarthy scales of children's abilities over a one-year period for Mexican-American children

The focus of the present study was to examine the stability of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for a sample of 42 English-speaking and 42 Spanish-speaking Mexican-American preschoolers of low SES background. The subjects were retested after a period of one year, and a test-retest stability coefficient of .88 was observed for the General Cognitive Index for the English-speaking children and .77 for the Spanish-speaking children. It was concluded that the results of the present study provide some preliminary evidence that the McCarthy is a relatively stable instrument for English-speaking Mexican-American children.     

Methods for analyzing multidimensional contingency tables

Many problems investigated by researchers in higher education involve simple frequency counts and their analysis. Not too infrequently, these frequency counts arise from the cross-classification of a sample of observations on a number of qualitative variables. In this case, the investigator is usually interested in examining the multiplicative interactions among the classification variables. When the number of classification variables exceeds two, however, the investigator is faced with rather severe problems in undertaking his analysis. All too often, the researcher is reduced to breaking up his multidimensional contingency table into smaller, typically two-way tables, and analyzing each separately. This article describes a unified approach, developed by L.A. Goodman, to the analysis of the p-way contingency table which enriches our understanding of the relationships existing among the classification variables. Two examples from research in higher education are used to demonstrate the usefulness of the method.     

Comparison of the peabody picture vocabulary test-revised and the McCarthy screening test

The relationship between the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and the McCarthy Screening Test (MST) was investigated with a sample of 39 Caucasian children from a semirural, Northeastern Ohio school district. The sample consisted of 23 males and 16 females, whose mean age was 62.3 months. Pearson product moment correlations were obtained between the measures, and correlated t-tests were completed. All of the subtests of the MST, excluding Numerical Memory and Leg Coordination, correlated positively and significantly with the PPVT-R. Discussion regarding the relationship found between the MST and the PPVT-R and that previously found between the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) and the PPVT-R is presented.     

Factor structure of the McCarthy Scales in 7-year-old Spanish children

This study was designed to examine the construct validity of the McCarthy Scales for 7-year-old Spanish children, using factorial analysis. Based on a sample of 128 children with a mean General Cognitive Index of 104 (SD = 15.37), five factors were generated by principal component analysis, and one factor by principal factor analysis. An analysis of congruence between the factorial matrices of 7- and 4-year old children was performed. The degree of similarity of factors between sample was determined by means of a technique of factorial invariance using Tucker's coefficient of congruence. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

建筑制图课程体系研究与实践

建筑制图是土建类专业的基础课程,随着计算机信息技术的飞速发展,其教学目标和教学内容发生了很大的变化。本文结合工程实际的需要,介绍了建筑制图教学体系的优化整合及具体实施方案。优化后的建筑制图课程体系符合应用型本科的教学定位,加强了学生实践能力和创新精神的培养,并取得了较好的成果。