COMPUTATION OF WECHSLER ADULT INTELLIGENCE SCALE REVISED FACTOR SCORES - EQUAL AND DIFFERENTIAL WEIGHTS

Standard procedures for estimating factor scores for the Wechsler Adul t Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R; D. Wechsler, 1981) involve equal ly weighted sums of the subtests that load most highly on the factor b eing estimated. We argue that factor scores derived in this manner lac k discriminant validity; they are strongly biased toward g (the first unrotated factor) and away from the other 2 unrotated factors. If regr ession-like weights are applied to all of the WAIS-R subtests and the products are summed, the resulting differentially weighted factors giv e results that show similar convergent validity and much greater discr iminant validity with respect to the original factors.