An Attempt to Determine the Construct Validity of Measures Hypothesized to Represent an Orientation to Right,Left,or Integrated Hemispheric Brain Function for a Sample of Primary School Children 1 2 3

Abstract

In an instructional program planned to increase the academic growth of children in preschool and in primary school grades (some of whom were learning disabled or educationally handicapped), teaching materials were developed to stimulate use of right and left brain function as a means of equalizing hemispheric development and of maximizing learning capabilities. For a public school treatment (experimental) sample, a public school comparison sample, and a private school treatment sample, an attempt was made to obtain evidence of the construct validity of several pupil ability measures hypothesized to represent an orientation to right, left, or integrated hemispheric function and of teacher observation subscales intended to reveal behaviors or activities in a school setting that were hypothesized to portray a preference for right or left brain function. Application of a multitrait-multimethod matrix to selected posttest measures for the experimental public school and private school samples did not establish the convergent or divergent validity of measures chosen to represent hypothesized right hemisphere (RH) and left hemisphere (LH) functions. Factor analyses of correlational matrices of selected pretest and posttest measures along with other variables across the three samples (six analyses in all) in general did not provide support for the existence of two dimensions hypothesized to reflect constructs of RH or LH orientation. The factor analytic outcomes posed two alternative interpretations of (a) the presence of two general ability dimensions of abstract (information processing of semantic and symbolic content) and concrete (information processing of figural content) thinking or (b) the appearance of instrumental dimensions corresponding to method or scale format variance rather than to variance associated with hypothesized latent traits. Recommended procedures were offered for improving the construct validity of measures intended to represent an orientation to an RH or LH function.

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