WJ III Assessment Service Bulletins
The following series of Assessment Service Bulletins (ASBs) provide education professionals and clinicians supportive technical data, feature comparisons, and practical applications of the WJ III family of assessments.
Each ASB features a different topic that, when reviewed carefully, will help professionals maximize the breadth of information and depth of diagnostic utility available through the WJ III assessment system. Print and read the bulletins as needed, and share with colleagues who use WJ III to diagnose learning disabilities, plan educational programs, provide psychometric training, conduct research, or more.
This document includes five tables that compare the WJ III Tests of Cognitive Abilities to the Wechsler Intelligence Scales, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale®—Third Edition, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children®—Third Edition, and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence™—Revised. These tables make comparisons along a number of different dimensions, including content features, administration features, interpretation features, technical features and more.
This abstract outlines the procedures followed in developing and validating the WJ III. Throughout the development and the design of associated research studies, test standards as outlined in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], and National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 1999) were followed carefully. This abstract contains a summary of information from the WJ III Technical Manual (McGrew & Woodcock, 2001).
Several discrepancy procedures are available with the WJ III. This ASB provides distinctions among the various discrepancy procedures and differentiates the purposes of each for the assessment of individuals with learning disabilities.
This bulletin outlines a step-by-step procedure for calculating ability/achievement discrepancies between the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children — Third Edition and the WJ III Tests of Achievement. It includes a reproducible worksheet for calculating these discrepancies. The procedure is based on correlations between the measures obtained from a broad sample of non-referred individuals.
This document compares the major comprehensive achievement batteries along a number of different dimensions. It includes seven tables that compare the following elements of the tests: select content features, administration procedures, levels and types of interpretation, technical characteristics, academic abilities measured according to the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory, coverage of learning disability assessment areas found in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the variation in individual task characteristics.
This bulletin outlines a step-by-step procedure for calculating discrepancies between the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III) General Intellectual Ability–Standard (GIA-Std) score and selected WJ III Tests of Cognitive Abilities clusters. It includes a reproducible worksheet for calculating these discrepancies.
This bulletin integrates information on the WJ III, Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory, and selected research in cognitive psychology. Support for a specification of the cognitive processes involved in performance on the WJ III is described in terms of CHC theory with selected classic and contemporary cognitive and neuroscience research.
This bulletin relates the WJ III Tests of Achievement to a number of evidence-based educational interventions. The Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) narrow abilities and a description of the cognitive processes required for performance on each test provides the conceptual basis for the links between the WJ III and the suggested educational interventions.
This bulletin describes the differences between the 2000 U.S. Census projections and the 2000 U.S. Census statistics and the impact this had on the WJ III norms. It further describes how recalculation of the WJ III norms based on the final 2000 U.S. Census statistics and the use of state-of-the-art bootstrap resampling procedures resulted in the WJ III Normative Update (WJ III NU), a more current and accurate comparison of an individual’s scores to the U.S. population. Finally, it provides recommendations for best practice use of the WJ III/WJ III NU scores in tracking individuals’ performance across time, allowing users of the WJ III to have great confidence in the accuracy of the scores from this instrument.
This bulletin relates the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ III® COG)and the Woodcock-Johnson III Diagnostic Supplement to the Tests of Cognitive Abilities (DS) to educational interventions and accommodations. The Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) broad and narrow abilities and descriptions of the cognitive processes required for performance on each test provide the theoretical and conceptual bases for suggested links between the WJ III COG and DS and a number of evidence-based instructional interventions. Research discussed in this bulletin suggests that the CHC abilities (and, by inference, their constituent cognitive processes) are related to specific academic abilities. Consequently, educational interventions or accommodations that address related cognitive limitations may be foundational to improved performance in academic areas where learning difficulties are manifested.
The purpose of this bulletin is to familiarize users of the WJ III with the development, interpretation, and application of the W score and the RPI. Specifically, this bulletin describes the levels of interpretive information available in the WJ III, explains the special characteristics and usefulness of the W scale, and describes how the RPI fits into the hierarchy of information used to interpret test results, including, the differences between the RPI and peer-comparison scores, the usefulness of the RPI in clarifying diagnostic profiles and designing interventions and considerations for using the RPI in view of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 2004, and the use of the RPI in clinical research.
This bulletin examines the use of the Woodcock-Johnson III Normative Update (WJ III NU) Tests of Cognitive Abilities and Tests of Achievement with a random sample of 310 school-age Canadian students. Results were compared with a matched sample of U.S. subjects selected from the WJ III NU standardization sample using WJ III NU norms. While some minor score differences are reported across the two samples, the study findings generally support the use of the U.S.-based WJ III NU norms with Canadian school-age populations.