Group Project: History of Special Education and Cultural / Linguistic Diversity and Exceptionality 

Culture-free and culture-fair tests

• Tried to address biases present in other IQ tests
   
• Culture-free tests - non-verbal tests
   
• Culture-fair tests - tried to eliminate the influence of culture.
   
• Some suggest we should use the differences, not eliminate them.

Assessment tools designed for one target audience cannot be transported directly to another cultural setting; in other words, there are no pure "culture fair" or "culture blind" materials (Puckett & Black, 1994).

Fortunately, culture fair intelligence tests such as the IPAT Scales, the Raven and others have been available for forty years and have gradually had their properties (1) and their degree of culture fairness established. Space precludes the lengthy digressions some critics might wish here so the reader is referred elsewhere (Cattell, 1971, 1979; Horn, 1976) with the observation that (1) culture fairness and freedom from test sophistication are different properties, and the administration must eliminate the latter, (2) differences so far seen have no relation to remoteness of cultures: for example the U.S. Midwest and Taiwan score almost identically on the same form, but north and south Italy (personal communication by Professor L. Meschieri) have appreciable difference, (3) the factor structure of the subtests remains similar in different countries, e.g. the U.S. and Germany (Weiss, 1969).

Culture-fair test, culture-free test
A culture-fair test attempts to minimize or equalize the differential effect of different cultural experiences upon performance. A culture-free test attempts to minimize the absolute effects of any cultural experiences on performance. There is no way of knowing if a test is actually culture free.