Morehead State University
The Effects of Gender, Scoring Procedures, and Administration Format on Stroop Color-Word Test Scores
Institution
Morehead State University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Sean Reilley
Abstract
Versions of the popular Stroop (1935) test are frequently used to assess AD/HD difficulties specific to inhibitory control. Although multiple Stroop versions are available, the Golden (1978) Stroop Color-Word test has been most used and gender effects have not previously been found. Golden & Freshwater (2002) recently renormed and updated their scoring procedures to include age and education corrected scores. Norms on both Stroop versions are largely based on a group administration in which participants silently indicate their responses rather than providing them verbally in an individual testing situation common in clinical practice. Four studies were conducted to compare the effects of gender, old (age correction) vs. new (age and education correction) scoring procedures, and individual (ns = 48 and 86), small group (n = 122), and large group (n = 160) administration formats on Stroop performance. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate ANOVA procedures with follow-up t-tests were used to test group level differences. As expected, gender differences did not emerge on either version of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Significantly higher Stroop scores were obtained as expected using age and education correction relative to age correction alone. Finally, Stroop scores differed only for the Word task when individual and group administration formats were compared. Although more research is needed to examine Word differences between formats, performance on the critical Stroop task for AD/HD, Color-Word, did not significantly differ between groups, thus suggesting initial evidence for use of group norms when individually administering this instrument in clinical practice.
The Effects of Gender, Scoring Procedures, and Administration Format on Stroop Color-Word Test Scores
Versions of the popular Stroop (1935) test are frequently used to assess AD/HD difficulties specific to inhibitory control. Although multiple Stroop versions are available, the Golden (1978) Stroop Color-Word test has been most used and gender effects have not previously been found. Golden & Freshwater (2002) recently renormed and updated their scoring procedures to include age and education corrected scores. Norms on both Stroop versions are largely based on a group administration in which participants silently indicate their responses rather than providing them verbally in an individual testing situation common in clinical practice. Four studies were conducted to compare the effects of gender, old (age correction) vs. new (age and education correction) scoring procedures, and individual (ns = 48 and 86), small group (n = 122), and large group (n = 160) administration formats on Stroop performance. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate ANOVA procedures with follow-up t-tests were used to test group level differences. As expected, gender differences did not emerge on either version of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Significantly higher Stroop scores were obtained as expected using age and education correction relative to age correction alone. Finally, Stroop scores differed only for the Word task when individual and group administration formats were compared. Although more research is needed to examine Word differences between formats, performance on the critical Stroop task for AD/HD, Color-Word, did not significantly differ between groups, thus suggesting initial evidence for use of group norms when individually administering this instrument in clinical practice.