ABILITY FACTORS AS A FUNCTION OF ADVANTAGED AND DISADVANTAGED GROUPS

Preliminary factor analyses of predictor tests in advantaged and disadvantaged groups is recommended as a way of forming a priori expectations concerning validities of the predictors to guide both use and research. Factor analyses of Project Talent ability measures are reported for groups defined by top and bottom quartile placement in intelligence and socio-economic status. There are no important differences in results associated with differences in socio-economic status, but there are fairly numerous differences in loadings for individual measures in groups defined by level of intelligence. Most of these differences can be explained by the characteristics of the scales of measurement. For a small number of measures, however, there is evidence for differences in loadings as a function of the intellectual level of the subjects per se. These latter measures would be expected to have differential validities for similarly selected intelligence groups, but not for socio-economic groups.