Abstract
The study examined the psychometric characteristics of three automated working memory span tasks: operational, reading, and symmetry span task, administered in groups of participants. For each task, the metric characteristics of six scoring procedures were evaluated: partial, absolute, partial non-weighted, absolute non-weighted, partial weighted, and absolute weighted scoring. Metric characteristics of all measures were compared across two parallel analyses: with and without application of a typical 85% accuracy criterion on the processing component of the tasks. The study demonstrates that the group administration of span tasks does not compromise their psychometric characteristics. All the tasks had an adequate internal consistency with Cronbach’s αs equal to or above .70; the exception being all types of the symmetry span task absolute scores with α values close to .60. Furthermore, all tasks have satisfactory convergent construct validity as well as criterion validity estimated in relation to measures of fluid intelligence. Omitting the 85% accuracy criterion on the processing component of the span tasks did not impair their psychometric properties. Thus, it is recommended that researchers discard this accuracy criterion as a criterion for filtering the results for further statistical analyses.
Highlights
By developing further the concept of the central executive from Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory (WM) model [1], Engle and colleagues proposed a dual-component model of working memory capacity
The largest number of participants succeeded in fulfilling the 85% accuracy criterion on reading span task (RSPAN), which is followed by operational span task (OSPAN) and symmetry span task (SSPAN)
For OSPAN, that percentage was 14% (69 out of 497 participants), which corresponds to 15% of participants who failed under the same criteria in Unsworth et al [9]
Summary
By developing further the concept of the central executive from Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory (WM) model [1], Engle and colleagues proposed a dual-component model of working memory capacity (for an overview, see: [2,3,4,5,6]). In a typical research procedure only the results of participants who achieve the 85% accuracy criterion on the processing component of the span task are taken into analysis. This criterion is to ensure that participants were truly engaged in solving the processing tasks (which, according to the dual-component model of WMC, creates interference in maintaining and recalling the to-be-remembered items). Sets of varying lengths are presented three times in random order Such a design enables the calculation of six different WMC scores. In addressing the above questions, this study represents a large scale investigation of whether group administration, scoring procedures, and accuracy criterion influence the psychometric properties of three common span tasks. As the analyses with different accuracy criteria– 85%, 80%, 75%, 50%/ no accuracy criterion–yielded similar results, this paper presents only the results obtained with the 85% accuracy criterion and with no accuracy criterion applied, while analyses with other listed criteria are presented in S1–S8, S10 and S11 Tables
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