Time for the Changing of the Guard: A Farewell to Short Forms of Intelligence Tests

Abstract
The development of short forms of intelligence tests, especially of Wechsler's scales, has been a pastime of researchers and clinicians for decades. These short forms have usually been of the two- or four-subtest variety, but other variants such as Satz-Mogel split-half short forms have also been common. The literature is replete with proposed short forms and with controversies over their proper use, the statistical problems associated with validity coefficients when the short-form data are obtained from a complete administration of the test battery, and the logic of choosing subtests that are long to administer and score in view of the goal to reduce time. This article argues that the time has come to abandon short forms of intelligence tests in favor of brief tests such as the K-BIT, WASI, and WRIT, which are reliable, valid, well normed, and easy both to give and score.