Title Authors York University

1. Title • Authors • York University ABSTRACT As part of a longitudinal study on cognitive abilities assessment, 970 Grade-2 students from a largely immigrant school board from the Greater Toronto Area completed two measures of Mental Attentional Capacity (M-capacity). M-capacity is a limited resource for boosting activation of task-relevant schemes. It is a causal factor in working memory and developmental intelligence. Country of origin of the child and each parent and first language of the child and each parent, plus languagecurrently spoken at home were combined to represent the possible advantage of being Canadian-born and English-speaking. The relationship among these characteristics (named Home Advantage - HA in this study) and M-capacity was tested using SEM. Results indicate that HA significantly predicts performance only for one of the tasks, supporting theoretical predictions on the sources of variance for each of them. Figure 1. Demographic distribution of the sample by country of origin and language spoken Figure 3. SEM Model of Home Advantage (HA) predicting performance on the FIT and the WLT. • DISCUSSION • M-capacity measures have been shown to be fairly free of cultural bias when assessing cognitive abilities in children from diverse populations 1,2. • The present results confirm the use of M-measures as non-biased in terms of country of origin and language spoken, particularly the FIT. • This finding has to be seen as partial because these are self-report observations that were reduced to dichotomous form as a simplification of the diversity of the sample. • Performance on WLT is known to be determined, not only by M-capacity, but also by knowledge of physical principles, and by resolution of perceptual conflicts between saliency and experience 3.Cognitive style (Field-Dependence/Independence) is linked to this last aspect. • To better explain the social-cultural factors influencing cognitive style (and assessment in general) future studies may include parent involvement, parenting style, language proficiency (both in heritage language and English) and/or international samples in their country of origin. METHOD Demographic information was obtained through parent self-report. It included country of origin of the child and each parent and first language of the child and each parent, plus languagecurrently spoken at home. Figure 1 shows the distribution of these two dimensions in the sample. Most parents were born overseas, whereas most children were born in Canada. These dichotomous indicators were used to construct the latent variable HA. Two cognitive tasks (see TASKS) were group administered to all participants. To construct the latent variable for the FIT the task was deconstructed into 8 different indicators; on each of the first 7 (R2-R8) items with only Relevant figures on the left (see sample item Figure 2a) were grouped by class (given by number of figures presented). For the 8th indicator all the items that contained Irrelevant figures on the left were grouped. The latent variable for the WLT was constructed from the shared variance of the two scores (Horizontal and Tilted, see TASKS and Figure 2b). TASKS In the Figural Intersections Task (FIT) 2 to 8 shapes are presented discretely on the right and in an overlapping configuration on the left (Figure 2a). The task is to find the one area of intersection of all shapes from the right. A paper and pencil version of Piaget & Inhelder’s Water Level Task (WLT) was used. On bottle outlines (Figure 2b), participants draw a line to show where the top of the water would bein a half-full bottle and mark an “x” where the actual water would be. Two scores are calculated, one for Horizontal/Vertical bottles and one for Tilted ones. (a) (b) RESULTS First, a measurement model for the Latent Variables HA (“Home Advantage”), FIT and WLT was fitted using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Goodness-of-fit indicators showed a good fit to the data. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM, Figure 3) was used to assess the influence of HA on each of the tasks (FIT & WLT). Separate latent variables were constructed for each task. The model showed good fit to the data. The regression loading of WLT on HA was significant (.118, SE=0.053), whereas FIT was not significantly predicted by HA (.001, SE=0.038). The correlation between the two M-measures was significant (.652, SE=0.046). Figure 2. FIT (a) and WLT (b) sample items. Acknowledgements Research was funded by a grant from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#410-2006-2325), awarded to the first and third authors. We thank students & staff of participating schools. We appreciate the assistance of C. Lee, C. Balioussis, N. Friedland, A. Gorewich, M. Baloch, M. Arsalidou, E. Verrilli, & S. Hitzig; and the advice of D. Flora. References Pascual-Leone, J., Johnson, J., Baskind, S., Dworsky, S., & Severtson, E. (2000). Culture-fair assessment and the processes of mental attention. In A. Kozulin, & Y. Rand (Eds.), Experience of mediated learning: An impact of Feuerstein's theory in education and psychology. (pp. 191-214). Elmsford, NY, US: Pergamon Press. Pascual-Leone, J., Ijaz, H. (1989). Mental capacity testing as a form of intellectual-developmental assessment. In Samuda, R., Kong, S., Cummins, J., Pascual-Leone, J., Lewis, J. (Eds.), Assessment and placement of minority students (pp.143-171). Toronto: Hogrefe International. Pascual-Leone, J. & Morra, S. (1991). Horizontality of water level: A neo-Piagetian developmental review. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 23, 231-276.