g Psy-Com Services HANDBOOK BY SANJAY VOHRA Designed & Developed by Px-Com Services Copyight @ 211. Al gts reserved by Poy-Com Services 2, ‘ove, New Dati (M7810129847 Pr26105438, 2617519)3 CONTENTS 2, ABILITIES MEASUREDINDBDA-R : 3, STANDARDIZATION : 4. TECHNICALINFORMATION ONDBDA-R f 5, ADMINISTRATIONOF THEBATTERY : 6 SCORING AND USE OF NORM TABLES ‘i 1. INTERPRETATION OF SCORES . §, APPLICATIONS OPDBDA-RRESULTS . BIBLIOGRAPHY ANDREFERENCES. ——__ List OF TABLES ee Demographic Descriation of the Standardization Samples Tablet Table-2 Reliability Coefficients for DBDA Tests. Table-3 Correlation Between OBDA Tests and Inteligence Tests Gotrelaions Between Academic Achievement and EDA Tests Working Time and Number of items In Each Tost Norms for Sth Standard BOYS Norms for Sth Standard GIRLS Norms for 9th Standard BOYS & GIRLS (Combined) Norms for 10th Standard BOYS Table-10 Norms for {0th Standard GIRLS Tablo-14 Norms for 10th Standard BOYS & GIRLS (Combined) Table-12 Norms for 7th Standard BOYS Table-13 Norms for 11th Standard GIRLS qible-té Norms for 41th Standard BOYS & GIRLS (Combined) Table-15 Nome for 42th Standard BOYS: Table-i8 Norms for 12th Standard GIRLS Tenet Norms for 12th Standard BOYS & GIRLS (Combined) Norms for College Students MALES Norms for College Students FEMALES Noims for College Students MALES & FEMALES (Combined) Norms for Normal Adult Population MALES Tapie.az Norms for Normal Adult Pepulation FEMALES 28 Norms for Normal Adult Population MALES & FEMALES (Combined)DBDA: Peychological testing bogan, it will be recalled, with efforts to device scientific Instruments for the measurements and study of individual differences in inte ‘gence, Mevsurement and analyses of this ‘complex mental process has continued te be the most impariant and widespread type of peychologica! testing. It Ie desir able, therefore, to examine the defini- tions and theeries of intelligence, both {or thelr historical value and their current significance i test construction and utl- zation, Knowledge of these will give the Student a fuller understanding of current teats. ‘The methodology for measuring mental ‘ability stands at the crossroads between the trasitional elinlesl-ampicieal mode of development and the increasingly favoured psychometric approach. At present the traditional clinical methods fre serving as the basis and support for tests of single individuals, while the sta {istical approach Is belng employed in progressively more group tests. Jn the past, the Investigators developed Certain tests fo measure infoligence ac- cording to thelr preconceived nations of what in functional terms, ability. meant to them, Those who defined ability Be the activiy to learn, developed vari- Gus tests to measure this quality. Simi- forty, those whe regarded obilty as syn- onymous with intelligence, constructed Feasoning problems and tasks to evalu- ‘ite intelligence. In this way ability tests Geveloped into a congeries of empi ally aesembled tasks erganized accord- ing to various operational definitions of this psychological phenomenon. To define this phenomenon we can say that ability is the actual power f0 perform fan act, physical or mental, whether oF not ‘attained By training endlor educstion. General obilty fe concerned with all sorts ff tacks, but specially those of a cogni tive or intellectual nature. Special ability has to do with a defined kind of t Each special ability should, whene\ A RETROSPECTIVE possible, be 20 defined, a5 not to overlap fvith other special abilities. Ability thus implies that the task can be performed how, if the necessary extemal circum ‘Stances are present, no further training is heeded. To compare ability with simisr Bhenomencn it is seen that: Aptitude (which formerly carried im- plications of innateness) has now been Specialized In technical writing to refer to {he fact that the individual can be brought by # specified amount of training to 2 Specified level of ability, either general or Special, but usually the latter. Capability is the maximum effe nese a person can attain with optimum training Capacity is ¢ loose synonym for abi ity or even for aptitude, often with implies tions of inneteness. ‘Talent is a high degree of billy or of aptitude. Gift and endowment are popu terms for high ability, largely Innate. Competence js fitness either for particular kind of tack or Mines in gen oral. Various theories have come up in the past few years to highlight the different methodologies to be adopted for measur- ing differential abilities. Among the most prominent onee is that of Group Factor Theories. Such theories were originally conceived by Thurstono whose work re- Sulted in the construction of a set of mea- ures called Teste of Primary Mental Abili- ties. According to group factor theory, fabllty not an expression of innumerabl highiy specif factors, nor is it the ex pression primarily of a general factor that pervades all montal activities. Infact, the Snalysis and interpretation of group fac {or thear'sts lead to tho conclusion that ‘certain mental operations have in com= mon a “primaty” factor that gives themunity and gies ana eutnal unt an anna tn rm oer mil baler tg menial opera, atomatute a “group.” A second 2°08 than contperatone fas Tt ity SHORE a une st Se el io ane Pay others. ical and ft bagod onaiyeis of some six such ability cre ST ems eigen ‘Thuretone characterized in 4 series of distinct abiliis, Somewhat different {rom that of Thorndike or Woscheler, who assumed that their individual sub-teste were pure measures of the designated ability, Ac- cording to Thurstone, an ability is iso- lated by giving mental tosts toa great number of persons and then determining, through ® mathemstical process knows 4s “factor analyses", the least number of abilities necessary io explain the corre. Jai/ons amang the teste. In his pion study Thurstone (1938) isolated be tors" that accounted for most of tho score Similory of $3 diferent ‘este given to a STOUR ef college students. ‘These wore Nerbal, Number, Spatial, Word fluency Memory, and Reasoning: The verbar Tote {oF was identified by is heavy “loading fon tests of 1638INg, synonyens ales, grammar, and vocaeuioys& ‘Thurstone's number factor wn Mary, by loadings ‘on such teste ey hig multiplication and arithmeto°¢an, amg reste vane IR munoptu’ ar ene mary mental abies tests tact pi nogvow ei aay ene Bor of factors isolated seponggt®, in erably on tho educational aoe’ 8 arth Stars sae a eo and_on the number. and types ed teed in the factor analyse Wye Shown’ hat Thurston’ co tt So inary mental abies” comes tively with each other whieh sung presence of a sill more basis Sea, Sehnents factor ae hed fo Soe Quod by the Brilsh peyshologit eat Spearman. Recent thinking among factor enatys, about the nature of human inteigens has lead to slightly different ideas. One's represented by Spearman's British yey: tion of investigation, exemplified by Phir Vernon's. structure of human, which human mental abil inged ina hi feral factor and split into two major “grou factors, one distinguished by verbal ng ‘educational abilities (v:ed) and the ciher by practical or performance abilities ). Each of these major group is the differentiated into. mo numbe ‘and space. These finally break into ‘ac: tors found in specific types of test. This, ‘any mental performance can be deseilbed 88 involving percentages of g, vied, v bal and others until all the factors needed to account for the performance have been determined. The scheme of Horn and Cattell (1966) has some. similatity to Vernon's structure. Cattell distinguishes between fluid and crystallized inte gence. Crystallized intelligence is largely @ function of one’s environment and is Much like the. ved ‘abilities, Fluid intell- Genes reflects more of the genetic aspect of Intelligence and is more clearly flected in non-ianguage tasks that af less related to one's background oF pre vious experience.Another view of mental ablities grows ‘rom Thurstonian American tradition ot investigation. ls chiet edvocate is J.P Guilford, who devised a theoretical Stace ture-of-intellect model (Si) in which he lassifies human mental ablities in tiros dimensions. The first ie defined by the kind of test content confronting the ind! vidual ~ “Figural or “behavioural” The second js defined by the types of mental “operations” noc- essary to deal with the various ‘content forme “cognition”, “momorization’, “con inking’ “divergent thinking", tion’. The last deals with the ‘outcome or “producte” yielded by the vari- ‘ous mental operations applied to the varl- ‘ous content forms. There ate six prod Ucts: units of information, classes of unit, relations between units, systems of infor” mations, transformations, and implica- tions. With four Kinds of cententar five kinde of operations and ebx kinds of prod- Ucts. Invalved in mental performances, Guilford postulates 120 (4x5x8) distinct mental abilities in the SI modal. He re- ports that about sixty of these have been {eolated through factor analytic investi- gations. Perhaps the most important application of factor-analytic studies of mental abili- tioe has been the Increasing use of “multi aptitude” test batteries in educational and Yoeational guidance. These batteries are composed of 2 series of individual tests bullt sround the findings of factor analy- ‘sis; to a cortaln degree each of the gen- ‘ral battery's tific abil, One such battery is the Differ- ential Aptitude ‘Test (DAT) for use with high school students; the DAT contains seven subtests that measure verbal rea: ening, numerical abllty, absiract re soning, space relations, mechanic soning, clerical speed and accuracy, and Tanguage usage. Bul DAT and other such batteries which currently exist do not in- tend to be “pure” measures of single “fac. tore’, they just ‘provide @ profile of an individual's ‘mental strangths and, weak- taking this aspect Into consideration 2 tost/batlory was essen- ly Feared which could cetineate spe- site aoiites based ‘neuron secupe: Honalvecalonal needs nd ite-siiee ‘Thus, the stimulus for the davelopmont of David's Battery of Differential Abilitios (80A) came largely from the growing Fealization that, although most of the pri- mary ability traits had been isolated and studied, the available standardized teat batteries of inteligence and sbiilies did fot reflect currently accepted views of the ‘number and nature of the psychological constructs involved. The overall guiding principal in the development of the DBDA was to provide a battery of short tests co ‘to provide investigators with an eco: nomics! vehicle for assessing © wide ange of the important ability constructs. ‘Thus, keeping the above concept in mind, the David's Battery of Differential AbiI- -s (OBDA) - Revised Version is being of an individuals" various mental abilities. The DBDA (Revised Version) is 4 stendardized procedure for objectively measuring what a person is able to do at the lime he is being aesoreed and under the conditions of the assessment. In- cluded in thie concept ie the realization that individuel behaviour including men- tal processes, ie neither consistent nor stable. Although scores for groups may bo relatively stable, t does not follow that the individual score within a group will be similarly stable. And the fact that DBDA high predictive validity does ‘his test may be accorded the same predict- ‘ability a¢ the group iteelt. Bacause ability Is a product of nature as well as nurture, fan individuals mental functioning wil be influenced by many exiinslc factore such as-cultural exposures, including quality factors such as personality characteristics. The ‘most we may say for the OBDA scores ie that it describes how the individual per= forms. here and now, and that all things. being equal, he will probably continue to function in a like manner,ABILITIES MEASURED IN DBDA-R nity (VA) VERBAL Al ol Abitiy efors 10 the comrote nd ideas, or a, person's witfen languege. It chologists vero si of werd ae i Sbity to anderson aay sen tuaied oy te py Ba mony years and is one of the most Poa of human abiltes. Traditional ree Ge general inteligenco usually tap ito age extent, In tho BDA, VA is WAsicee Op two different kinds of eub- Be Vocabulary (VA Part!) and Und Sancing proverbs (VA Part). This abi if can be expectes to figure prominanty Ih Sorcens In acadomic and school tated portecmances. iis 9 pracotor 0 Sceupstone invoWwng much reading and Airing of reperts, an 60.00, This factor Is asteceed by taking the sum of a person's seores on VAI and V-il In this nc other tests of the DBDA, no correc~ ‘ion for quoesing is applied VA Part involves word meaning exer cise to access the subject's knowledge (of English words and his ability to ab- Stract and generalize relationships ‘among words. VA Partll involves the abil- ily to recognize the proverbs and under- ‘fand thelr fatant meaning, an ability ae ‘sured to be essentially the same as that ‘of comprehension of language, and use ‘age of words in day to.day ite. ‘Te VA subtest i included inthis battory Beceuce itis ariipates to be Use Predicting important err su ae ace. {cri ausooss, speedy and accurate to. fall of exact data Tocelveo from the sur rounsinge, and rand compronaneion ot ‘etal src vere verbal ris ienships and eoneapte ave importa The VA score deserves 2 eonncersie woiaht whore itis Te be Jsdgod tha Sth the eubjects from 3 goed tana Echea! education or not, Vocatoneti, the WA score aio incoates somes bout the occupational ivel upto wed the aubject should appropeuely ashucy since thar Is'a porive venice many ccespatons belweon the leva Lt responsibly of job and the of verbally phrased ideas to berm, Ronde Plexi om. NUMERICAL ABILITY (nay Numeral ability refers to Fact iy hipulating numbers. qulcky and 9 ralely, in tasks Involving adltion, st traction, multiplication, division, sexe” ing dealing with fractions ete. Na ea tinet from Both reasoning and mathencs fa! knowledge, and 's withthe mare i Sic trait of facilily and fluency In tise mental number operations. This 81 Generally found high in indvicuas vas Gre successful in mathematical, sce tite, and technical subjects It i'¢ prea, {orf occupations involving corsputaen isks, such 28 verious cletical account ing. enginaering, technological, det we, aveing fobs, sto ‘The problems to be solved in NA test are not difficult but they have to done in very limited time. Thus, increasing the di. cully level for rapid calculations. in com bination with the VA eeore, both the less are 2 good measure of general learning abitity. SPATIAL ABILITY (sa) Spatial Ability is concerned with pereeh ing spatial patterns accurately, and fo: lowing the orientation of figures when their position ina plane or space is 2 tered, This ability has been extensively Studied over the years and has been seen {8 an indicator of non-verbal, oF to some extent, culture-fair intelligence, since = dependence on acculturation and lean ing is minimal, In DBDA, SA is assessed by items in which the subject must be abie to determine quickly whether two dimensional figures have been mere) turned around (rotated) or, they are ture? over and rotated (reversed). This abilly fs found to be high in individuals who 7‘successful in geometrical drawing, draft- ing, vocations! training, and in art and dosign, IL Is a predictor of occupations Invoiving figural materials, such as those dealing with shopwork, architecture, bullcing construction, engineering, com: mercial art, dress-designing, die-making, ‘and decoration, etc. ‘The latent feature which operates in SA, is that the Items require mental mantpu- lation of ebjecte in Siree-dimensional (3- D) space. Thus, SA is a good measure of apiity to deal with concrete material through visualization. Thete are many tasks in whieh one fs required to Imagine hhow an object would look if made from = given pattern, or how a specified object ‘would appear if rotated in a given way. CLOSURE ABILITY (CA) Closure Ablity Is primary 2 perceptual abllty meavured by the DBDA. It refers to the ability to see qulekly whole stimu- lus when parte of It are missing, or to ‘complete the Gestalt" The principle of closure has been adopted from Gestalt Psychology, which says that the brain tends to fil'in gaps In order to perceive ‘complate meaninafulforms. CAs @ speed fest aosessed by iteme in which the ex: ‘mines must loak at a ‘mutilated word,” fe. a word with parts of the lettars miss- ing, decide wnat tha word is, and then {ind wien ene of the five jumbled options Spells shat word when unjumbled. Both ‘completing the gestalt of the “mutlates word” and unjumbling ofthe letters in the Dptions tap this ability. CA can be ex- pected to be relevant (o success in Courses. and secupations involving ‘Speedy visual poreoption, such 3s those concerned with office and shopwork, ar- Chiteetuire, computer programming and ‘ata processing, art and designing, eto, CLERICAL ABILITY (CL) Clerical Abi Ie perceptuat activity pri- marily coneernes with making ropid evaluations of features of visual stimuli 7 1m Gt, the perceptual epoed and accu- racy is measured by items in which the examinee must rapidly assess the sameness or citferance of paired groups ‘of letlars oF numbers. The items thus pro- vides a series of situations whieh simu- lates the elements involved in many cleri- cal jobs. Lillle or no “higher level" of Intellectual difficulty i involved In this test, But since intelligence or mental abil ty components are adequately measured by other tests of this battory, it was de- cided to include this ability also duo 10 high vocational value of this abifly L.Is important to suceass In many tasks involving record-keeping, filing, taking Inventories, sigpatehing, coding, and other similar jobs. tis relatively less in- parlance for mosi educational purposes, although students who score very low may find it dificult to meet classroom standards of neatnoss, epeed and preci- sion. A low score on this test fora gener- filly superior subject fe tkely to Incicate Fisher emphasis on correctness rather than speed. REASONING ABILITY (RA) Reasoning Ablity refers to the ability to apply the process of induction or to rea Son from seme epeoiic information to @ general principle. Here, RA is measured by items requiring the subject to inspect ‘of four lattes and discover how four Sf the five sets presented embody a gon- tral principle, while the fithy dows not ‘Thus, fille oF no reliance is placed on leamed material, words, or numbers, so that RA scores will be a 900d indicator of on-verbal, nen-culturally biased Intll- {Genee. This Ie ane of the most important Primary mental abillies in many tests of general intelligence. The series pre- ‘antod in oach problem lem requires the perception of an operating principle in the sets of letters. In aach instance, the subject must discover the principle(s) overning the set of letters and give evi- dence of his understanding by Identity- Ing the got which does not follow the logic followed in other setsle mpotant to suscess in many areas Bale apy those that stress Tosi, such part gna occupations in atherat= Tecate pursue, computer progr leg orretetmoutng, seances a3 8 Tc iechnotoay MECHANICAL ABILITY (WA) wesna em eels spe tanner fanaa The ability measured by MA test may be regarded as one aspect of intelligence, if infoligence Is broadly defined. The por son who stands high in this ability finds it easy to lear the principles of operation and repair of complex devices. The score Is affected by provious experience of the ‘subject but not to a degree that intro- duces serious difficulties in interpreta- tion. The MA test is useful in those cur- ficula and occupations where an appre- 110 029 (INDIA). Ph: 2610643: tlook.com New ‘3 Email: psycom: 32