THE COLOURED PROGRESSIVE MATRICES : SINGAPOREAN NORMING AND PREDICTIVE VALIDITY STUDY

Abstract

Norming and predictive validity of the Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) was carried out on Singaporean data. The CPM is proposed to be a non-verbal measure of the psychometric g among young children (Raven, Court & Raven, 1915). There has been no attempt at norming or evaluation of predictive validity of the CPM in Singapore. This thesis attempted to fill the void. For the norming exercise, 6 172 primary school children repesentative of the multiracial Singapore were administered the CPM on group basis. Their ages ranged from 6:10 to 12: 11 years. Analysis of the norming data revealed the following: 1) Singapore norms were higher than UK, Germany and Australia; 2) the Chinese subjects outperformed the rest ; 3) the boys performed marginally better than the girls is 4 of the lower primary age poops ; 4) the CPM scoree increased sharply between the ages of 7 and 9, then the CPM scores started to experience ceiling effects ;and 5) there was wider distribution of scores for the younger and the weaker children. Several plausible explanations are given concentrating mainly on environmental factors. The predictive validity of the CPM of academic performance was also examined with a different sample of 182 primary three and five students. Correlation coefficients between the CPM and academic achievement measures of English, Mathematics , Science and the second language ( Chinese and Malay) were focused on for the two levels. For the primary three students, the CPM was correlated significantly with Science (r=.33), Math (r=.47) and Chinese (r=.74). For the primary five students was significantly correlated with the Chinese Language (r= .37). This study revealed that the CPM is capable of distinguishing between high- and low- achievers in the schools. The norming results also indicated that there seems to be a critical period for intellectual development as measured by the CPM. The high correlation of the CPM and the Chinese language, and the superior performance of the Chinese in the CPM is worth noting. Visuospatial training may help in the performance of the CPM (Kirby & Das, 1978). The CPM seems to be appropriate for Singapore and it is predictive of school performance among younger primary school students. The CPM can adequately assess the observational ability and developmental readiness for younger children in Singapore.