Changes in Shipley-Hartford Scores with Five Repeated Test Administrations: Statistical Conventions vs Behavioral Evidence

Abstract

The Shipley Hartford Scale was administered to two groups of high school students and one group of chronic, hospitalized psychiatric patients to determine whether scores improved with repeated test administration and whether any improvement found was related to S's expressed desire to do well. Findings showed that, while scores on both Vocabulary and Abstract Reasoning tasks tended to improve with student Ss, there were no consistent sequential gains over trials. No significant differences were found with high- and low-motivated students. In general, scores of psychiatric patients did not improve with repeated administrations on either task. When classed in terms of high and low motivation, however, highly-motivated patients showed a significant gain in Abstract scores. The findings suggest that multiple variables interact in determining whether scores improve with repetition.