Different WAIS-R short forms and their relation to ethnicity

Potential racial bias on commonly used WAIS-R short forms was examined in a group of 201 African-Americans matched with Caucasians in terms of age, education, gender, and occupational status. Within racial groups, all short form IQs correlated highly with the WAIS-R IQs (all rs 0.87). Although relatively large racial differences emerged on the Block Design, Vocabulary, and Arithmetic subtests, only mild racial discrepancies emerged for three out of the seven short forms investigated. While the magnitude of the results for the short forms was mild, based on these findings it was suggested that certain short forms not be used with African-Americans in order to minimize the potential influence of racial basis.