A randomly selected stratified sample of the working French-speaking population of greater Ottawa, consisting of 370 subjects, was chosen from a pool of 980 Ottawa-Wechsler records. Comparisons between the means of the youngest and oldest age groups or between the highest mean and that of the oldest subjects were made for each of the subtests and composite scales. Where differences reached the 1% level of statistical significance, the method of partial correlation was applied to the sample, followed by a similar analysis of the age groups to determine what effects, if any, they had on the sample. No significant differences between the means of the youngest and oldest age groups or between the highest mean and that of the oldest subjects were found on Renseignements, Cas pratiques, Chiffres, Resemblances, Blocs a dessins and the Echelle verbale. Differences were obtained for the remaining five subtests and two Scales. In dealing with the Arithmetique and Images incompletes subtests, further analysis revealed that when the influences of education and occupation were nullified, all or most of the variance was explained by these variables since the Pearson correlations were reduced to zero or nearly so. Our study would indicate that intelligence itself does not decline either generally or differentially as age progresses, but rather that it compensates for what would otherwise be a more severe lose in test scores due to changes in sensory and physiological functions, interacting with psychological and other non-intellective influences which are peculiar to the individual as he grows older.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/10752 |
| Date | January 1964 |
| Creators | Colli, Pascal Joseph Delli. |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 156 p. |
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