Cross-lagged Panel Analysis of Sixteen Cognitive Measures at Four Grade Levels

Abstract

and SELZER, UZI. Cross-lagged Panel Analysis of Sixteen Cognitive Measures at Four Grade Levels. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 944-952. A multivariate modification of the crosslagged panel correlation paradigm has been applied to 4 subgroups of students tested and retested in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh grades on 16 essentially identical cognitive measures. With high consistency among black males, white males, black females, and white females and among the 6 combinations of the 4 grades taken 2 at a time, Listening, a test of aural comprehension, appears to be tapping the causal factors involved in intellectual development. Prediction of later cognitive composites from Listening scores is substantially higher than the postdiction of earlier composites from those same scores. In this respect, furthermore, the Listening test clearly stands apart from all of the other cognitive measures.