Reconsidering the Failure Rule for the Children's Embedded Figures Test

Abstract

The manual for the Embedded Figures Test ( 4 ) stipulates that testing children should be discontinued on the Children's Embedded Figures Test ( 3 ) if a child fails the last four of the 11 Tent items or five consecutive items of the 14 House items. As the 25 items in the two series are ordered by difficulty, comparatively few children between 5 and 7 yr. of age proceed from the Tent to the House series ( 1 ) . Burlingame, Hardy, and Eliot ( 2 ) collected data from 240 children, 24 of each sex from Grades K-4, from three elementary schools in a suburban Maryland county. As all items were administered to all children, three scores were obtained: Tent, House, and Total. A Pearson correlation indicated that Tent and House series were related significantly to the Total score (Tent .824; House ,815) but not with each other. Of the 75 children (38 boys, 37 girls) who 'failed' the Tent series, 71 scored on the House series (33% at K, 29% at 1' grade, 21% at Znd grade, 13% at 3' grade, 2.6% at 41b grade). Of the 71 children, 38.99% scored as well or higher on the House series than they did on the Tent series, and 18.67% would have completed all 14 icems from the House series. If 18.67% of the 71 children were able to complete the House series despite the failure rule and if 38.77% scored as well or better on the Ilouse icems as on the Tent items, then to discontinue testing according to the failure rule decreases the test's discrirninability. These results are interpreted as indicating that if test administrators wish to make finer discriminations among young children, the failure rule is inappropriate.

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