Assessing the cognitive abilities of culturally and linguistically diverse students: Predictive validity of verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal tests

Verbal and quantitative reasoning tests provide valuable information about cognitive abilities that are important to academic success. Information about these abilities may be particularly valuable to teachers of students who are English-language learners (ELL), because leveraging reasoning skills to support comprehension is a critical aptitude for their academic success. However, due to concerns about cultural bias, many researchers advise exclusive use of nonverbal tests with ELL students despite a lack of evidence that nonverbal tests provide greater validity for these students. In this study, a test measuring verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal reasoning was administered to a culturally and linguistically diverse sample of students. The two-year predictive relationship between ability and achievement scores revealed that nonverbal scores had weaker correlations with future achievement than did quantitative and verbal reasoning ability scores for ELL and non-ELL students. Results do not indicate differential prediction and do not support the exclusive use of nonverbal tests for ELL students. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.