Relationships between standardized psychometric and Piagetian measures of intelligence at the formal operations level

Abstract

A hierarchical factor structure was found underlying two group intelligence tests, Heim's AH 4 Test of General Intelligence and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, and two group Piagetian formal operations tests, Shayer's Science Reasoning Tasks and Arlin's Test of Formal Reasoning. These four tests,were administered to a stratified random sample of 459 15-year-olds in Singapore. Factor analysis conducted on the 23 subtest scores of the four tests revealed four oblique first-order factors. A higher order factor analysis revealed one second-order factor. The Schmid-Leiman transformation was then used to replace factors in the two orders with an orthogonal hierarchical factor matrix, consisting of a general factor and four group factors, a formal operations factor, a spatial factor, a verbal factor, and a numerical factor. The finding of a hierarchical factor structure provides important support for the hierarchical model of intelligence, widening the traditional psychometric concept of intelligence to include the Plagetian concept of intelligence.