WECHSLER INTELLIGENCE SCALE FOR CHILDREN- FOURTH EDITION (WISC-IV): ADAPTATION, TRANSLATION, AND STANDARDIZATION IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The present research was primarily aimed to adapt, translate, and standardize WISC-IV for Pakistan. The research was conducted in collaboration with NCS Pearson Private Limited, India as part of a larger project aiming at standardization of WISC-IV for South Asia. Research process was completed through three studies. Study-I was concerned with the adaptation and translation of WISC-IV and it was completed through two phases. Phase I involved pre-testing of the original WISC-IV South Asia subtests (n=12). Its findings not only identified few items needing adaptation but also suggested translation of instructions and/or item content of all subtests (including performance subtests). Phase II was concerned with the steps involved in proper adaptation and translation of the WISC-IV subtests. It involved a priori procedures (judgmental procedures) for adaptation and translation of the subtests. These procedures included multiple-forward translation, committee approaches, and expert reviews. This process resulted in development of Urdu adaptation of WISC-IV in which child directed instructions for all subtests and item content of all verbal subtests have been translated into Urdu along with various adaptive changes. Study II was aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the WISC-IV PAK through conduction of tryout I (n=33), tryout II (n=88), and tryout III (n=110). Initial tryout assessed functioning and comprehensibility of items through response frequency and reliability analysis only. But other two tryouts involved Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) based psychometric techniques to improve, item reliability, item difficulty, item discrimination, and item fit. This detailed item analysis v involved item re-ordering of nine subtests and changes in item content and/or sampled responses of few other subtests and resulted in finalization of WISC-IV PAK. The study III involved the standardization of the WISC-IV PAK and was completed through four phases. All the analyses conducted in this study are based on a normative sample of 800 children (50% girls) selected through following a stratified random sampling design. The normative sample was stratified into 11 age groups, two gender groups, five geographical regions, and three parental education levels. It was selected from govt., semi-govt., and private schools and colleges situated in 10 districts of Pakistan. In the first phase of study III, subtests temporal stability and internal consistency evidence was established. In the phase II a multi-model multi-trait matrix method was utilized to establish convergent and discriminant validity of WISC-IV PAK. The cross validation of WISC-IV factorial structure in Pakistan was also done during this phase. Pakistani norms for WISC-IV PAK were developed for 11 age groups of one year ranging from 6 to 16 years and 11 months in the phase III of the standardization study. Two types of norms including standard score norms (scaled scores and composite scores) and test-age equivalent norms were derived. Comparison of WISC-IV PAK composite scores by using Pakistani and UK norms was also conducted in this phase. In the last phase of study III influence of variables like age, gender, geographical region, and parental education level on children’s intelligence level was explored. This concluded the efforts to provide a reliable and well-standardized tool to measure intelligence of Pakistani children.