THE INTELLIGENCE-STRUCTURE-TEST (I-S-T-70 ) - ANALYZING ITS THEORETICAL BASIS AND PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES

The construction of well-developed and state-of-the-art intelligence t ests should be based on models of intelligence. The development of Xmt hauer's I-S-T 70 had no systematic theoretical foundation and relation to available models. instead, the selection of tasks was primarily gu ided by intuition and plausibility: The question arises as to which co mponents and which more general aspects of intelligence are covered by the I-S-T 70. nir will focus in particular on die internal structure of the test. Against this background the construction and use of profi les in the I-S-T 70 will also be discussed. In addition to these quest ions concerning the validity of the test, which form the focus of this analysis, we also present results on the most important psychometric criteria and use them for an evaluation of this instrument. The sample group consisted of 279 subjects from different occupations. The surve y was carried out in the former East Germany in 1991, so that the resu lts do not necessarily apply to the former West Germany. The results s how chat the internal structure with nine scales postulated by Amthaue r cannot be confirmed in multivariate analyses: rather, it appears to be reduced to only two or three components. The usefulness of the I-S- T 70 intelligence profiles is also questionable. Internet validity - c alculated via correlation with the Figure Reasoning Test - is moderate ly high. Structural analyses and a comparison with today's theories of intelligence structure imply that a fundamental revision af the I-S-T 70 is necessary.