Raven’s Progressive Matrices

Pearson Assessment obtained the rights to the Raven’s Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales in 2005 and asked The Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge to undertake their full UK schools standardisation.  The project, completed in 2008,  produced UK versions of the Coloured Progressive Matrices (for 4-7 year olds), the Standard Progressive Matrices (for 7-18 year olds) and their linked vocabulary tests. 1600 children and young people were assessed, stratified in terms of the 2001 UK Census. 

The Ravens Educational Scales are published by Pearson Clinical.

The Raven’s Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales

The Matrices measure the ability to make sense and meaning out of complex or confusing data; the ability to perceive new patterns and relationships, and to forge (largely non-verbal) constructs that make it easy to handle complexity. They come in 2 formats:

• Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) (for use with children under 8 and elderly people)
• Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) (for use with children of 8 and above as well as the general population)

The associated vocabulary scales measure the ability to store, process and utilize a culture’s store of (largely verbal) information and knowledge. They are the:

• Crichton Vocabulary Scale (CVS) (for use with the CPM)
• Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale (MHV) (for use with SPM)

The Psychometric Centre’s director, Professor John Rust commented: “Our relationship with Pearson Assessment goes back nearly 20 years and we’re incredibly pleased they’ve asked us to work on the newly acquired Raven’s materials. They’re very robust, well-researched and contribute to the move to international testing. We work on the Wechsler range of materials as well, so the Centre is handling some of the key international tests that are used as the basis for key educational decisions in the UK.”

Development and Purpose of the Raven’s Matrices

The Raven’s Matrices was originally developed by the British Psychologist John C, Raven in 1936 as a nonverbal test for the measurement of abstract reasoning and fluid intelligence — the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independently of acquired knowledge. The test was long considered a good assessment of general cognitive ability and has been widely used across various settings, including clinical, educational, and occupational environments. Raven introduced the test initially to study genetic and environmental influences on intelligence. He sought to create a measure that was culturally fair, minimizing the impact of language and educational background on test performance. The test consists of multiple-choice items, each of which presents a pattern with a missing piece. The participant’s task is to select the correct piece from several options.

However, later work should that the belief that the test was culturally fair was misguided. It has been found that, in the absence of a modern educational system or a familiarity with books, children do not see ‘choosing a missing piece in a pattern’ as any more a natural part of life than being able to read or write. Despite this, the test does still have the advantage that it is non-verbal. This means that educated children in the same class that speak different languages can sit the same test at the same time and their results can be compared to national standards.

Evolution, Use and the Flynn Effect

Over the years, the Raven’s Matrices have been updated to reflect changes in population norms and to improve its psychometric properties. For example, the Standard Progressive Matrices Plus was introduced as an alternative to the original SPM, featuring more difficult items to better differentiate among individuals at the higher end of the ability spectrum. It is still widely used for educational placement, employment selection, and research into human intelligence. But perhaps its most important effect has been on our understanding of changes in IQ over time. This is largely because its long history and widespread use by intelligence researchers has made it an ideal instrument for the comparison of IQ scores across the decades. In the late 1990s, Professor James Flynn produced convincing evidence that IQ scores have been progressing over the past century at a rate of between 3 and 4 IQ points per decade – a phenomenon today known as the ‘Flynn Effect‘.

In summary, the Raven’s Progressive Matrices remain a valuable tool for assessing cognitive abilities, especially in contexts where language-free assessment is desired. Its development marked a significant advancement in the effort to measure intelligence in a fair and equitable manner.