Erratum to “stability of the McCarthy Scales of Children's abilities over a one-year period for Mexican-American Children”

Abstract

In the test-retest stability investigation of the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (MSCA) (McCarthy, 1972) by Valencia (1983), the observed stability coefficients were corrected for restriction of range (re). In making the corrections, the author inadvertently made a computational error when using the correction formula by Guilford (1954, p.392). The re values for the MSCA scales have been recalculated and are now accurate. In Valencia (1983), the re column in Table 1 should now read as follows for the English-speaking sample: Verbal (.go), Perceptual-Performance (.9 l), Quantitative (.92), Memory ( .86) , and GCI ( .86). In Table 2, the re column should read as follows for the Spanish-speaking sample: Verbal (.89), Perceptual-Performance ( .85), Quantitative (.88), Memory (.91), and GCI (.79). The revised results are that the properly corrected stability coefficients yield different conclusions. Using a .85 magnitude for acceptable level of stability, all the MSCA scales for the English-speaking group indicate sound stability. For the Spanishspeaking group, four ofjive scales indicate sound stability. In short, the MSCA is a considerably more stable instrument than initially suggested in Valencia (1983).