Age and Ability Differentiation and Their Interaction in Children

• In Event: Novel Approaches to Analyzing Educational and Psychological Data

Abstract

Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). We present an empirical study in which nonlinear factor analytic models were applied to the standardization sample (N = 2,619 German elementary school children; age range 6 – 12 years) of the THINK intelligence test to investigate ability differentiation, developmental differentiation, and their interaction. The results showed no consistent evidence for the presence of differentiation effects or their interaction. Instead, different patterns were observed for figural, numerical, and verbal reasoning.

Authors

• Moritz Lion Breit, University of Trier

• Martin Brunner, University of Potsdam

• Franzis Preckel, University of Trier