For checking on heteroscedasticity in regression models, a unified approach
is proposed to constructing test statistics in parametric and nonparametri
c regression models. For nonparametric regression, the test is not affected
sensitively by the choice of smoothing parameters which are involved in es
timation of the nonparametric regression function. The limiting null distri
bution of the test statistic remains the same in a wide range of the smooth
ing parameters. When the covariate is one-dimensional, the tests are, under
some conditions, asymptotically distribution-free. In the high-dimensional
cases, the validity of bootstrap approximations is investigated. It is sho
wn that a variant of the wild bootstrap is consistent while the classical b
ootstrap is not in the general case, but is applicable if some extra assump
tion on conditional variance of the squared error is imposed. A simulation
study is performed to provide evidence of how the tests work and compare wi
th tests that have appeared in the literature. The approach may readily be
extended to handle partial linear, and linear autoregressive models.