The reliability and validity of the WRAT were investigated with 191 Mexican-American children. Internal consistency reliability coefficients for the WRAT were found to be high and comparable to those reported in the WRAT manual. Correlations between the WRAT subtests and those of the MAT all were significant and suggested moderate to high relationship between these two measures. It was concluded that the WRAT meets minimum requirements of reliability and validity with Mexican-American children.
Recent litigation over the discriminatory effects of standardized testing with culturally diverse children (Diana vs. State Board of Education, Note 1; Guadalupe vs. Tempe Elementary School District, Note 2; Hobson vs. Hansen, Note 3; Larry P. vs. Wilson Riles, Note 4) has led to a close examination of the appropriateness of currently used norm-referenced tests for the psychoeducational assessment of children from minority cultures. Although the researchers have approached this issue differently (Cleary, 1968; Darlington, 1971; Thorndike, 1971), the most common objection to the use of traditional tests in assessing minority children stems from the fact that the experiential background of the minority child differs from that of middle-class Anglos upon whom the tests are usually normed. Consequently, injustice is done to those who are assessed by means of standards that are foreign to them. Another frequent criticism of tests relates to the reliability and validity of assessment instruments when administered to individuals with varying linguistic and cultural characteristics (Deutch, Fishman, Kogan, North, & Whiteman, 1964). If a test does not measure the same construct consistently and the commonly used scores obtained from a test predict a common criterion differently depending upon ethnic group membership, then the appropriateness of test scores for members from diverse ethnocultures becomes questionable. It is this latter aspect of test appropriateness that was examined in this study by determining the reliability and validity of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) (Jastak 8c Jastak, 1976) for a sample of bilingual Mexican-American subjects.
Although several research studies designed to explore psychometric properties of currently used ability and achievement tests have appeared in the literature in recent years, conclusions emerging from such studies offer only limited help to psychologists in the use of tests like the WRAT with children from diverse cultural groups. One of the problems that arises with the use of standardized tests with minority group children is that of ability range tested. A test that has too high a base level will leave a portion of the tested sample unable to answer any item, while if a test is selected with sufficiently low base, the concomitant level of the ceiling will artificially limit those subjects with greater ability than the test can measure. Since the WRAT is not limited by the "base-ceiling" problem, and since the Mexican-Americans represent a minority population of more than five million, the results of this study should enhance the use of the WRAT for the psychoeducational evaluation of bilingual youngsters.