Effects of general and specific abilities on student achievement: Similarities and differences across ethnic groups

The utility of interpretation of specific versus general cognitive abilities continues to be a controversial topic in psychology and education. The purpose of this research was to compare the effects of specific and general abilities on the general and specific reading and mathematics achievement of students from three ethnic groups: African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian students. Multisample structural equation modeling was used to test whether the same specific abilities were important for all ethnic groups, and whether the magnitude of those influences was the same across groups. Several competing models of the effects of specific and general abilities on achievement for students in Grades 1-12 were compared. Data were drawn from the nationally representative Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery - Revised standardization sample. Results suggest that specific abilities are indeed important for understanding students' achievements, and that the same abilities are important for all ethnic groups. In most cases, the magnitude of those effects were indistinguishable across groups. However, there were differences in the influences for students in the elementary-, middle-, and high-school years; those differences may be related to the development of skills in reading and mathematics. I argue that these findings demonstrate the importance of specific abilities for understanding specific achievements, and the importance of assessing such abilities to understand reading and mathematics achievement, regardless of a student's ethnicity.