Construct validity of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices for African and nonAfrican engineering students

We test the hypothesis that the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices has the same construct validity in African university students as it does in non-African students by examining data from 306 highly select 17- to 23-year olds in the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of the Witwatersrand (177 Africans, 57 East Indians, 72 Whites; 54 women, 252 men). Analyses were made of the Matrices scores, an English Comprehension test, the Similarities subscale from the South African Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, end-of-year university grades, and high-school grade point average. Out of the 36 Matrices problems, the African students solved an average of 23; East Indian students, 26; andWhite students, 29 (po.001), placing them at the 60th, 71st, and 86th percentiles, respectively, and yielding IQ equivalents of 103, 108, and 118 on the 1993 US norms. The same pattern of group differences was found on the Comprehension Test, the Similarities subscale, university course grades, and high-school grade-point average. The items on the Matrices ‘behaved ’ in the same way for the African students as they did for the non-African students, thereby indicating the test’s internal validity. Item analyses, including a confirmatory factor analysis, showed that the African/non-Africa