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WISC-III subtests of similarities, vocabulary and comprehension: objective or subjective scoring?

In all psychological tests, scoring should be of concern for examiners because the accuracy of results depends, at some extent, on the quality of the correction. This work aims to examine the correction, by different psychologists, of the scores for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) subtests of Similarities, Vocabulary and Comprehension since these are the subtests where examiner's subjectivity seemingly most influences scoring. Forty two psychologists from different states in Brazil participated in this study. They corrected the answers of six test protocols randomly selected from a standardization sample for the Brazilian context. Taking as reference the total scores, the Vocabulary subtest showed greater variability in score, followed by the Comprehension one. Considering the total number of items tested in each subtest, Similarities had the highest agreement among raters. The results showed that all the three subtests involve subjectivity on behalf of the examiner to score the answers. Continuing in this study, we also aim to determine test reliability based on interrater agreement.

WISC-III; Psychometric; Verbal Subtests


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