Practitioners' perceptions on the value of cognitive assessment measures within the South African context

Abstract

Intelligence testing is defined as a measure of evaluating an individual’s cognitive functioning through the use of both standardized and ecological tools (Ortiz, Lella, & Canter, 2010), and as explained by Cockcroft (2013), is used to understand the “developed academic potential” (pp. 48) of a child. Through this explanation one is able to infer the purpose of such testing as being rooted at "gauging" the potential of any given individual insofar as cognitive abilities and processing are concerned. A report compiled by Foxcroft, Paterson, Le Roux and Herbst (2004), looked at the various psychological assessments utilised in South Africa for the measuring of cognitive ability in children and adolescences. This report indicated that, at the time of publication, the various assessments available and in high rotation within the Republic for purposes of intellectually based testing (both internally and externally normed), a large number of those used were not normed for the South African population. An interesting, and controversial result as this brings into question the suitability of outcomes for a multicultural context such as South Africa. Furthermore, the degree to which such assessments can be utilised as valid measures of the potential of the South African learner over outcomes obtained on South African assessments such as the JSAIS and SSAIS? Given the high rotation of non-normed assessment measures, this research looked to investigate the perceptions of psychological practitioners regarding not only the value of psychological assessments within the South Africa context, but to gain insight into the factors that influence preference of some measures over others. Where beliefs, attitudes and perceptions often inform one’s overt behaviour (Argyle, 1994; Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010), future behaviour becomes predictable through locating the rationale behind its expression. In understanding the perceptions, thus behaviour of practitioners, elements within learning and development that require revision may be identified so as to progress psychological practice in the Republic towards a more global comparative standing.