Journal of Intelligence

We tested 75 participants in a selective university near the East Coast of the United States for their skills in scientific reasoning. We used scientific reasoning assessments for Generating Hypotheses, Generating Experiments, and Drawing Conclusions. To measure scientific reasoning skills, we also used a task involving analyzing scientific impact based on titles of published studies (which were either highly cited or scarcely cited), and another task involving creating what participants believed might be high-impact scientific studies in three subject matter areas. Participants further completed two fluid intelligence tests: Number Series and Letter Sets. They also filled in demographic information, including self-reported SAT/ACT scores and college GPA. (We cannot obtain actual grades at our university because of student-confidentiality issues.) We found that the scientific reasoning tests for Generating Hypotheses, Generating Experiments, and Drawing Conclusions clustered into a single factor, and the task for creating high-impact studies was also factored with these scientific reasoning tests. The two fluid ability tests—Number Series and Letter Sets—clustered into a distinct single factor. The task of analyzing impact seemed to be in between the other tasks, showing characteristics of not only the scientific reasoning tasks but also of the fluid intelligence tasks.

This study examines how domain-general (processing speed and receptive vocabulary) and domain-specific (symbolic and non-symbolic comparison) cognitive skills contribute to early informal mathematical thinking in preschoolers. The aim was to assess the invariance of these predictive relationships across two sociocultural contexts: Chilean and Spanish samples. A total of 130 children participated, and structural equation modeling was used to estimate latent structures and test multigroup invariance. The results revealed a consistent latent structure across samples and a significant contribution of symbolic and non-symbolic comparison to early math performance, while processing speed and vocabulary showed context-specific variations. These findings indicate that although foundational mathematical competencies rely on common cognitive mechanisms, cultural and educational contexts modulate the strength of these associations. This study contributes to understanding the cognitive architecture underlying early numeracy and highlights the importance of culturally sensitive assessment and intervention strategies.

Spatial reasoning ability plays a critical role in predicting academic outcomes, particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. According to the Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) theory of human intelligence, spatial reasoning is a general ability including various specific attributes. However, most spatial assessments focus on testing one specific spatial attribute or a limited set (e.g., visualization, rotation, etc.), rather than general spatial ability. To address this limitation, we created a mixed spatial test that includes mental rotation, object assembly, and isometric perception subtests to evaluate both general spatial ability and specific attributes. To understand the complex relationship between general spatial ability and mastery of specific attributes, we used a higher-order linear logistic model (HO-LLM), which is designed to simultaneously estimate high-order ability and sub-attributes. Additionally, this study compares four spatial ability classification frameworks using each to construct Q-matrices that define the relationships between test items and spatial reasoning attributes within the HO-LLM framework. Our findings indicate that HO-LLMs improve model fit and show distinct patterns of attribute mastery, highlighting which spatial attributes contribute most to general spatial ability. The results suggest that higher-order LLMs can offer a deeper and more interpretable assessment of spatial ability and support tailored training by identifying areas of strength and weakness in individual learners.