Relationship between Accuracy and Speed in the Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices test: normative data for Italian children aged 5-6 years

Abstract

The Raven’s Coloured Matrices (CPM) is one of the most used tests for assessing fluid intelligence in children. Although the speed factor is considered important for the measurement of this construct, normative data for speed are not available for the CPM test, and the speed contribution on the test performance is not known in the literature. To help fill these gaps, we provide the CPM Accuracy and Speed norms, and data on the relationship between the two measures, concerning a sample of 468 Italian children aged 5-6 years. A negative correlation emerged between accuracy and speed for the Ab and B Sets of the test, which include the most complex problems. The association in Set B (the most difficult) between a decrease in accuracy and an increase in speed suggests the prevalence of random responses, advising the exclusion of this Set from the computation of the total score in the considered ages. Comparisons between three groups of children (inaccurate and fast; inaccurate and slow; accurate and slow) indicate that the poor accuracy of fast children may be due to an impulsive approach to the task. This pattern of results calls into question the practice of evaluating the test performance taking into account only the accuracy factor.