Abstract
Psychometric tests related to vocabulary assessments are, for the most part, restricted in their use by trained professionals and/or are costly. These restrictions limit their use, especially for research purposes. To circumvent these limitations, the Raney Vocabulary Measure was created for assessing vocabulary proficiency, specifically for research purposes. The measure consists of 30 questions where participants were instructed to choose the best definition of each word. The purpose of the study was to examine the utility of the new measure using the highly standardized but protected Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Results from the linear combination of the subscales revealed the significant prediction of the Raney Vocabulary Measure, with the Vocabulary subtest contributing most to the unique variance. These results support that the test examines vocabulary ability. The current results are promising as the test would allow for greater accessibility for researchers who do not have access to restricted psychometric tests.
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Author’s declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in the current study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the educational institution research ethics board (REB).
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As the current study used human participants, informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. They were given permission to leave the study at any time.
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We thank Dr. Gary Raney for the creation of this measure. We also thank Lauren Empey for her support in running the first participants and feedback on the original version of this paper. Finally, we thank Joannie Quenneville, Eric Papineau, and Katya Gessie for their assistance in data collection. This research was supported by a Discovery grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and an infrastructure grant from Canada Foundation for Innovation to Annie Roy-Charland.
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Ferguson, R.J., Roy-Charland, A. & Dickinson, J. Examining the Utility of the New Raney Vocabulary Measure Alongside the WAIS-III. J Psycholinguist Res 47, 833–840 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9555-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9555-2