Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Tester bias on SBV?

I admit I am new to all of this, but we just got our daughter's SBV results back, and there was a comment in the report that I found odd. Comments were "Task commitment and focus varied from subtest to subtest. This may have affected her score in both quantitative reasoning and working memory. Difficulty forming strategies to solve multilevel problems was noticeable. She seemed to lack some basic academic skills when attempting to answer questions or solve problems. An example would be, when looking at a map of the world, she did not realize that North and South America were switched." I guess I find it hard to reconcile this with a 99.9 FSP on the WASI. I know that the tests are apples and oranges, but still...

How is that tester bias? It seems like a fairly direct explanation of problems or weaknesses observed? It's possible your Child didn't gel with the tester, and that impacted their attention. I have watched my daughters being tested and their performance absolutely was variable between subtests, they were more interested in looking out the window than doing the test on any subtests they didn't find engaging. Though that was muh more a problem with the wisc/WPPSI than the sb5 which is much faster paced...

It was the lacking basic skills comment that struck me as odd. I thought the purpose of the test was to test ability, not content. I just didn't get a good vibe from the tester, and the test results seem out of sync with previous info.

All iq tests contain some crystalized knowledge as well as pure reasoning.

I know there are questions my kids have missed for lack of exposure to content.

But that's a different issue from bad vibe from tester. My 2e child had been tested 3 times now, didn't mind the first tester, loved the second, hated the third and really regret using him.... And I think his having he personality of a plank did affect my DDs performance on the verbal..

I should add all three verbal scores were in margin of error territory, but mr.plank got the lowest performance and the great and engaging tester got the best, indifferent tester smack in the middle...