M.A. / The educational and psychometric contexts in South Africa are currently characterised by concerns pertaining to the potentially spurious influence of the challenges of cultural heterogeneity and of the redress of past and present disadvantagement. The present investigation forms a research response to these challenges as they relate to the practical utility of a dynamic assessment measure for the purpose of selecting students for curricula at a South African university. In response to a growing dissatisfaction with longstanding selection procedures and instruments, the utility of a dynamically derived learning potential score is explored and contrasted with the traditionally employed static intellective measure of the matriculation score. The present investigation serves to augment a growing body of research that asserts the capacity of dynamic assessment to surmount many of the criticisms typically associated with static assessment and to contribute novel and useful information regarding the intellective faculties of prospective university students. Within the context of the investigation 71 first year students enrolled for the BA Extended Degree at the University of Johannesburg were assessed using the static intellective measure of a matriculation score and the dynamically informed global learning potential score of the Ability, Processing of Information and Learning Battery Short Version (APIL-B SV). The utility of the dynamically derived learning potential score to predict academic performance during the first year of university study was examined and contrasted with the predictive efficacy of the static matriculation score. The empirically examined data served to support conjecture that a dynamic intellective measure demonstrated significant utility in predicting the future academic performance of first year university students. In addition, the ability of this measure to predict academic performance in a manner that had significant benefit over the traditionally employed static matriculation score was affirmed.

M.A. / Traditional measures often used in the assessment of cognitive functions of individuals, are regarded as unsuitable for two reasons. Firstly, since a particular language is utilized in the test items and instructions of most cognitive tests, the overall lower verbal test scores of culturally diverse individuals often is an indicator of poor verbal knowledge and language proficiency that in effect has a bearing on an invalid lower Full Scale IQ score. The verbal item content fail to provide important information regarding the potential learning and reasoning abilities of a person from a different culture. Secondly, due to past standardization practices in the construction of measuring instruments, important elements regarding the cultural relevance of the content of the measures, have often failed to be included. In order to address such problems, this research examined the suitability of the S.O.N.-R 5 % - 17 according to three objectives: (a) to cognitively assess the non-verbal intelligence of 400 secondary school children from four culturally diverse groups in the Johannesburg metropolitan area, viz. Afrikaans-, English-, Sotho- and Zulu-speaking learners who are in grades 8-10; (b) to determine whether home language, grade level, socio-economic status (SES), gender, handedness and the use of visual aids (spectacles/contact lenses) were important variables in determining subtest total scores; and (c) to determine the appropriateness of the S.O.N.-R 5%- 17 for local use in terms of its psychometric properties, viz. reliability (internal consistency) as well as its construct and predictive validity. Apart from providing the developmental aspects pertaining to the cognitive development of adolescents, other important theoretical aspects of intelligence were discussed from a cross-cultural perspective in reference to various conceptual frameworks from which intelligence was viewed as a function of the internal (innate) psychological processes of the individual and the external (socio-cultural) psychological processes of the individual. An outline based on the psychometric and cultural implications for such theories of intelligence was also delineated in an effort to define the concept of intelligence as related to culture-fair testing.

A number of computerised tests have been especially developed to facilitate the medical management of the sports-related concussion. Probably the most widely used of these programmes is the ImPACT test that was developed in the USA and that is registered with the HPCSA for use in the South African context. A recent Afrikaans version of the test served as the basis of the present study with the following objectives: (i) to collect Afrikaans ImPACT normative data on a cohort of Afrikaans first language adolescent rugby players with Model C education for comparison with existing South African English first language adolescent rugby players with Private/Model C schooling, and (ii) to investigate the pre-versus postseason ImPACT neurocognitive test profiles of this cohort of Afrikaans first language adolescent rugby players versus equivalent noncontact sports controls. The results for Part 1 of the study generally demonstrate poorer performance in respect of the Afrikaans cohort, which is understood to be the result of poorer quality of education. The results for Part 2 demonstrated failure of the rugby group to benefit from practice on the ImPACT Visual Motor Speed composite score to the same extent as the control group. It is argued that this apparent cognitive vulnerability in the rugby group is due to lowered cognitive reserve capacity in association with long term exposure to concussive and sub-concussive injury.

This study was undertaken in the belief that a greater relationship would be revealed between the Rorschach and intelligence test scores if the factors in the Rorschach which have been found in the past to be related to intelligence could be compared as a whole with scores obtained on mental tests. The purpose of this study was to determine whether it could be demonstrated that a higher degree of relationship does exist between several of the Rorschach factors, considered as a whole, and intelligence as revealed by the California Test of Mental Maturity.

Some text in Zulu / Psychology of Education / M. Ed.