An investigation of the effects of level of acculturation on the performance of adult Hmong refugees on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and Bender-Gestalt Visual/Motor Test
Author(s):
Mulder, Pamela Lynne
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : California School of Professional Psychology - Fresno, 1991.
Pages:
208
Language:
English
Abstract:
One hundred and six adult Hmong refugees participated in an investigation of the relationships among demographic variables (age, gender, length of residence in the United States, educational history, and language fluency), level of acculturation, and performance on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and the Bender-Gestalt Visual/Motor Test (BGT). This investigation was undertaken because the SPM and BGT are almost routinely employed in psychological assessments of Hmong adults, despite the lack of normative data. The assessments were conducted in the Hmong language, and both the acculturation scale/questionnaire and the standardized instructions for the psychometric tests were subjected to rigorous translation and back-translation procedures to assure accuracy and equivalence of meaning. Group administrations were employed with 89 subjects; 17 participants were assessed individually. Two independent groups t tests demonstrated that there were no significant differences in performance on either the SPM or the BGT as a result of group versus individual testing procedures. Responses on the acculturation scale were subjected to exploratory factor analysis, using the SPSS-X Varimax rotation. Three scales with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 were extracted and subjected to an oblimin rotation to ensure factor independence. The resulting factor scores were thereafter used to represent level of acculturation. Standard forward multiple regressions and several simple correlations were used to examine the relationships among the major variables. Conclusions based upon the results of this investigation include: (a) adult Hmong refugees reliably score significantly below average on the SPM, and the validity of this instrument for this population is extremely questionable; (b) the performance of adult Hmong refugees on the SPM is vulnerable to the effects of early exposure to education, gender, and level of acculturation; (c) the performance of adult Hmong refugees on the BGT does not deviate significantly from previously established norms; and (d) the BGT is affected by age but not by level of acculturation.