Uses of Sibling Data in Educational and Psychological Research

Abstract

Methods are explained, with empirical examples, for using sibling data on psychometric variables (1) as a covariate for statistically controlling family background in psychological and educational experiments, (2) as a means for testing the adequacy of age-standardized scores, (3) for testing the interval scale property of mental measurements, (4) for analyzing correlations into between- and within-family components and distinguishing intrinsic from extrinsic correlations between variables, and (5) for detecting cultural (i.e., between families) sources of variance in psychological tests.