Translation, Adaptation and Validation of Slosson Intelligence Test – 4th Edition (Sit-4) for University Students

Abstract

The current research was mainly designed to translate and adapt Slosson Intelligence Test 4th Edition (SIT-4) as well as validate and standardize for university students in Pakistan. The research study was completed into two studies. The Study I was primarily concerned with translation and adaptation of SIT-4 in Urdu language. The phase I of the study I was chiefly concerned with the steps involved in appropriate translation and adaptation of SIT-4, the process involved a priori procedure (judgmental procedure) for translating and adapting the six domains of SIT-4 along with the instructions of each item and checklist for the administrator. This process encompassed several forward translations, backward translations, committee approaches, cognitive debriefing and expert reviews. This process resulted in the formulation of the final Urdu version of SIT-4 with all six domains and instructions with each item along with various adaptive changes. Following synthesis of the final Urdu version of SIT-4 , the posterior procedure (statistical procedure) was applied to evaluate the reliability as well as the validity of the newly translated SIT-4. For the psychometric estimation, a sample of 900 (426 men and 473 women) university students aged 19 - 28 years (M = 24.38, SD = 3.45), were selected through convenience sampling, from various universities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi (Pakistan). In phase II of the study I, the pilot testing (N - 50) showed that items are reliable and functioning well; the Kuder -Richardson-20 (KR-20) was calculated as .92 and Cronbach alpha for the adapted version of SIT-4 was between .91 to .92 . The Phase I of the Study II was focused mainly on structural validation of SIT-4 ; the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was carried out and Model fit indices were assessed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Six consecutive CFAs were conducted for the all six domains of the SIT-4. The psychometric evaluation of the six domainsof the SIT-4 including (comprehension, auditory memory, quantitative, vocabulary, general information, and similarities and differences) turned into excellent convergent and discriminant validity and reliability estimates. Measurement invariance for the domains of the SIT - 4 i.e., comprehension, auditory memory, quantitative, vocabulary, general information, and similarities and differences showed that the factor structures were invariant across gender i.e., men and women. In Phase II of the Study II norms were developed for the adapted SIT-4 and its six domains, percentile norms for age and gender were explored. It is concluded that the adapted version of SIT-4 has good psychometric properties, and is culturally and linguistically appropriate for the Pakistani university student population. It is evident that this study would pave way for future research in intelligence testing, future research can utilize these findings with a diverse age range.