Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices

Abbreviation: APM

The Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) by John C. Raven are a more demanding alternative to the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM). The starting point for their development was the low discriminatory power of the SPM in the upper quartile of the test score distribution, especially in above average gifted adolescents and adults. The first version of the APM dates from 1943 and was developed for personnel selection in the military. Between 1947 and 1962, the test was revised and analyzed several times. Since 1962, it has been available in the version that is customary today¹⁾.

The APM are used with children as well as with adults. Within TDB2Online, only the application in adults is covered.

The test description of the Standard Progressive Matrices is somewhat more detailed than the present one of the APM; an example of the type of tasks can also be found there.

The APM consist of two parts (Set I and Set II), whose tasks are published in two separate test booklets. For both there is a separate answer sheet. Part I consists of 12 rather easy tasks that are used as learning and warm-up material for Part II. As with the SPM, the tasks consist of incomplete geometric figures or patterns that are to be completed from eight response alternatives each (multiple choice). The 36 tasks of Part II are comparable to the first part in presentation and basic structure but substantially more complex. Normally, only the sum of correct solutions in Part II is used as the test score.

The currently valid version of the original test was published in 1998²⁾. After a change of publisher and a merger, it is currently produced and distributed in unchanged form by Pearson Assessment in San Antonio, TX.

A first German version by Kratzmeier and Horn was published in 1980 by Beltz Test³⁾. It contained German norms only for 15- and 16-year-olds, and, deviating from the normal scoring, both test parts were included in the sum score.

As part of the complete edition of the Raven tests by Swets Test Service (later Harcourt Test Service, now Pearson Assessment & Information GmbH, all in Frankfurt/Main), the APM were published in 1998 in the adaptation by Bulheller and Häcker⁴⁾. This is the currently valid German version. It contains German norms from 1997, which, however, essentially cover school children aged 13 years and older and university students. The age groups over 30 are comparatively thinly populated, those over 40 very thinly. The sample does not aim at representativeness and is therefore not usable for general norming purposes in adults.

The German version first published by Swets Test Service is currently published by Pearson Assessment & Information in Frankfurt. It can be obtained directly from them or via the test distributors in Germany or Switzerland. To administer the APM, one definitely needs the two test booklets (Set I and Set II) and the corresponding answer sheets. At least a cursory familiarity with the content of the German APM manual⁵⁾ is necessary, even though it contains much theory and practically no directly usable norms for adults. In addition, the test authors recommend reading the basic manual on the Raven matrices tests⁶⁾.

J. C. Raven's rights to his test were passed on from publisher to publisher and today are held internationally by Pearson Assessment, represented in Germany by Pearson Assessment & Information GmbH in Frankfurt.

The current manuals recommend administering the APM as a power test without a time limit. Part I serves to explain the task principle of the test in detail (and nonverbally!). The test can be administered both individually and as a group test (although the group size, especially in clinical applications, should be limited to a few persons). Administration takes under 10 minutes for Part I and about 40 minutes for Part II, but in individual cases can take much longer.

In contrast to the SPM, for which a time-limited administration is always discouraged because of the inhomogeneous arrangement of task difficulty, the APM can in principle also be administered as a time-limited test. However, the norms presented below refer to the unlimited administration.

The test raw score is the number of correct solutions in Part II of the APM. The range of values goes from 0 to 36.

see detailed test documentation

From the beginning, norms for the Raven tests were given as percentile ranks. This takes into account the fact that the relationship between raw scores and IQ scores is not linear. On the basis of the available percentile rank norms, the conversion into linear performance scores via the relationship between percentile ranks and units of the normal distribution is formally simple.

see detailed test documentation

see detailed test documentation

see detailed test documentation

see detailed test documentation

see detailed test documentation

Quite clear recommendations can be derived from the available data as to when which version of the Progressive Matrices is best applied. Figure 6 shows the raw scores of the SPM, APM, and CPM on the performance score scale. The conversion of raw scores into performance scores for the SPM and APM is based on the meta-analytically derived norms in TDB2Online. For the CPM, the CPM raw scores were first converted into SPM raw scores, using a conversion table by Andrich and Dawes given in most Raven manuals (for example, in Table 11, page 62, of the German SPM manual⁷⁾). The SPM raw scores obtained in this way were then converted into performance scores like normal SPM raw scores.

Figure 6: Raw score points of the SPM, APM, and CPM on the performance score scale

Each point in the curves corresponds to a raw score sum. Considering first only the maximum range of values, which goes from 0 to 36 for the APM and CPM and from 0 to 60 for the SPM, the SPM can measure performance scores from 57 to 131, the APM those from 64 to 135, and the CPM those from 57 to 118. However, one must also keep the discriminatory power of the tests in view. The narrower the horizontal distance between the points at a given location, the more finely the test can measure at that location (determined simply by raw score density).

Comparing SPM and APM in this respect, an advantage for the APM can be seen from a PS of about 105 upward, with an increasing tendency at the high performance scores. Between 90 and 105 there is no difference in discriminatory power; below 90 the SPM measure more finely. In the clinical setting, use of the APM would therefore be recommended if one has reliable prior information that a person will achieve at least average performance (in absolute terms, that is, performance scores) on such tasks. In the usual clinical examination situations, the Standard Matrices are therefore probably mostly preferable, especially since finer differentiation in the upper performance range is rarely likely to be among the clinical questions.

Comparing the SPM with the CPM, one must conclude that in adults there is actually no point at which the CPM have really better discriminatory power, but they have markedly worse power above performance scores of about 65. The CPM are therefore only very rarely appropriate in adults.