The principal conclusions reached as a result of the entire
Draft C project may now be assembled, and indications given of
further work which could be carried out.It seems from all the evidence that Draft C is not, after
all (although a timed test) e test where results are based mainly
on speed. The factor analyses failed to locate a clear speed - factor, the non -completion data in the error -analyses provided
evidence that speed plays a pert (though not necessarily a significant
pert), and the interviews showed that scores, while
affected by quickness or slowness of response, probably do
not in feet depend on a speed- factor as a crucial component in
performance. The writer considers that while speed clearly
enters into the matter, these tests are not so severely timed
as to make speed the principal element.Nor can it be said that Draft C is essentially a power - test, in the same sense as the American P.M.A. test, for it was
found in the course of the 65 interviews, and in the individual
testing, that it was a relatively rare occurrence for a child
to fail irrevocably in any of the items, given leisure, due
encouragement, and re- iteration of the instructions. This
could hardly be said of the P.M.A. test, which, covering as
it does a two -year age -span, contains items which inevitably
prove to be beyond the maturational stage of many of the children.
It might be considered that the "power" aspect of Draft C is
simply masked by the fact that it deals with a narrower age -range,
maturational demands being less obvious in items appropriate to a single year of age- range. This might indeed have been a valid supposition, were it not for the writer's testimony that
virtually all the children can in fact eventually solve and deal
with all the items.Again, it appears from the factor- analyses, the validation
against school performance, and the interviews, that Draft C is
not primarily measuring school attainment in verbal and number
skills to the same extent as the P.M.A. test. There are in it
no specific Parts designed to test classroom skills, as are
present in the P.M.A. (particularly the verbal and number parts).
The result of this is demonstrated clearly enough by Draft C's
lower correlation with a school attainment that was assessed
mainly on reading and number.It appears that although no "age" factor was clearly disclosed
by the factor analyses, the evidence afforded by the
standardisation, the error -analyses and the interviews makes
it fairly obvious that age is indeed of some importance in the
Draft C test -performance, but undoubtedly less than if the test
had been testing school attainment in verbal and number skills.
The interviews in particular show that while the older child is
likely to have an advantage in vocabulary, and consequently some
advantage conferred by recognition and naming of pictures, this
does not seem to be the crucial element in success.The Draft C test emerges from all these processes of investigation
as a more homespun, less sophisticated test than the
P.M.A. test. It is appropriate to a much narrower range of age,
as was shown by the results of the extensive re -test with 7 -yearolds
and the error -patterns based thereon. rlithin the agerange
to which it is directed, it appears to measure adequacy
of comprehension of oral instructions (which may be termed the "reception" aspect of mental activity) and also a general "reason - ing" ability (which concerns more the "production" aspect of this
activity). The test has also been seen to measure a spatial/
perceptual ability, more rudimentary perhaps and not so specific
as that tested by the P.L.A. identities and space tests. There
is less demand made on either acuity or speed, but it is none
the less an ability emphasising a "physical' element of perception.With regard to boy -girl differences, the factor analyses
seemed to indicate greater reliance by the girls on both verbal/
naming and verbal /reasoning ability, while the boys appear to
show dependence on perceptual ability, and in a wider spread of
tests. (The P.L.A. identities and space tests showed the most
nearly significant means in favour of boys) . The Draft C
Parts 7 and 8 (particularly the lengthier items of the latter)
have repeatedly shown some such distinction as this in the
course of the interviews and individual tests - the girls
tend to verbalise, describe and "debate'? the shapes and the
patterns in these Parts, while the boys are making much more use
of an ability to "see" and "spot" (quite noticeably in the
longer items of Part 8 mentioned above), as indeed they also
seem to do in some of the earlier Parts of the test, where
again the girls were more likely to verbalise and "reason ".
This tendency on the boys' part credits the boys with greater
perceptual quickness and acuity with regard to present and (as
in the P.M.A.) complex perceptual material, while the girls may
show some tendency towards successful "imaginal" handling of
rather less complex perceptual data: a tendency which need
not be unrelated to a verbal ability...The interviews with the 65 children corroborated the
findings of the factor analyses by underlining the special
importance of verbal /reasoning rather than verbal /naming as the deciding factor in the Draft C test, and in distinguishing also
a perceptual and spatial element. The girls interviewed and
tested individually appeared to use e verbal approach even to
the more "spatial" Parts of the test, with conspicuous success
in Part 8, where their mean score was higher than that of the
boys (giving a "t" ratio of 1.36)
