- The authors should provide more information about the participants. Since the age range extends to 20, I assume they were not all schoolchildren. If so, how were the adults recruited? Were they paid for participation?

- Were the tests administered in Classical Arabic?

- Did any of the participants learn Arabic as a second language? Given the location, I suspect some of them were Nubian-speakers.

- Did the results differ between Muslims and Coptic Christians?

- Were the tests administered in Classical Arabic?

Is it really an issue, here ? We are talking about the Raven, after all. If they understand what they have to do, I don't see the problem. However, I agree that a little more information on the participants will be welcomed, if possible.

It is an issue because many if not most Egyptians have trouble reading Classical Arabic. This is particularly so for Coptic Christians, who make up a large proportion of the population in Upper Egypt.

It is an issue because many if not most Egyptians have trouble reading Classical Arabic. This is particularly so for Coptic Christians, who make up a large proportion of the population in Upper Egypt.

The SPM are a visual test so they do not require language comprehension.

The test is visual but it's preceded by instructions that may be given orally or in writing. I realize that the nature of the test seems self-evident to the two of us, but that may not be so for a naïve test-taker. In particular, the test-taker should be told how much time he/she should allow for each question. Otherwise, the test-taker may waste time making sure that each answer is right and not finish the test in time.

This is a problem even if the test-taker is told that time has to be budgetted. Some people have no sense of time. The test thus becomes a measure of time preference and not cognitive skills.

I more or less agree with you, Peter. But in reading "administered" I was thinking about the language of the test, not especially the instructions, even though I know it's important too. In Bias in Mental Testing (chapter 15) Jensen said that he had been shocked (sometimes) to see how the test-takers (schoolchildren, if my memory is correct) did not understood some very simple instructions.

Concerning timing, I read from a certain paper (I forgot the title) that the manual from the Raven stated explicitly that the test should be administered without time limits, because if not, then it does not really measure g, but also a speed component (or something related) that wasn't purported to be measured. For what I have seen, in general, it seems that most studies use Raven with time limits, and the test was not 60-items, but 36 items or so. But these studies were merely using the Raven for correlating it with other psychological measures; sometimes the Raven was also administered with some other cognitive or achievement tests (which may explain why the test of Raven has been shortened, in order to avoid too much energy and burden for taking the tests). Maybe this does not apply here.

There are only two (minor) changes on the new version.

In version 1, the result section was :

The results are shown in Table 1. This gives the scores on the Standard Progressive Matrices for each age from 6.0 to 20 plus years, the British percentiles of these scores and their British IQ equivalents. The British percentiles for the 6.0 to 15.0 years olds ate taken from the 1979 British standardization sample given by Raven (1981). The British percentiles for the 18.0 to 20 plus year olds are taken from the 1992 British standardization sample given by Raven (1998). There are no British norms for 16 and 17 years olds.

In version 2, it becomes :

The results are shown in Table 1. This gives the scores on the Standard Progressive Matrices for each age from 6.0 to 20 plus years, the British percentiles of these scores and their British IQ equivalents. The British percentiles for the 6.0 to 15.0 years olds (N = 4733) are taken from the 1979 British standardization sample given by Raven (1981). The British percentiles for the 18.0 to 20 plus year olds (N = 1844) are taken from the 1992 British standardization sample given by Raven (1998). There are no British norms for 16 and 17 years olds.

For the discussion section, in version 1 we have :

The present study gives two significantly higher IQ of 88.1 and 90.4. We e now have five studies of the Egyptian IQ of which the median is 83. This is regarded as the best estimate of the IQ in Egypt currently available. This estimate is closely similar to the IQ of 84 for Tunisia and 85 for the IQ in Libya given by Meisenberg & Lynn (2011) and Lynn & Vanhanen (2012).

And in version 2 :

The present study gives two significantly higher IQ of 88.1 and 90.4. We now have five studies of the Egyptian IQ of which the median is 83. This is regarded as the best estimate of the IQ in Egypt currently available. This estimate is closely similar to the IQ of 84 for Tunisia and 85 for the IQ in Libya given by Meisenberg & Lynn (2011) and Lynn & Vanhanen (2012).

That does not address the question raised by Frost, I think.

Thanks for notifying this, I haven't read the mail you have quoted in its entirety. However, if they said in the paper that this information is not available, that would be ok, no ? I mean, if they recognize this in the mail, why not say it explicitly in the paper ?

Maybe we should add a new category of publication for this? "Summary of non-English source"?

I would be ok either way. Do as you think it's best.

A reply from Richard.

Dear Emil

We have revised this paper to meet the comments of your reviewer and attach the revision

A Standardization of the Standard Progressive Matrices in Egypt

In the revision we have added "The test was administered in Arabic, the first language of the participants,"

We are not able to answer the reviewer's other points because the information is not given in the report.

Best regards

Richard

" All these results are based on quite small samples. We report here the results of another study of intelligence in Egypt based on a much larger sample. "
The authors use the median to estimate IQ. I wonder if a weighted average would be better?

I approve publication of the most recent version (posted by Emil on 11/6/2012); I noticed no flaws with it.

I have two concerns:

1. It seems impossible to verify the content of the original study (Saleh, 1988) or even its existence. The journal exists (it's issued by the Faculty of Education at Minia University), but no abstract of the original study seems to be available anywhere. Nor can I find any references to it. I don't want to be a doubting Thomas, but like Emil I feel that a scan of the original study should be included with the new paper.

2. Is it legitimate to republish a study in another language without the original author's permission? This is more than just a case of citing a previous study.

@ Peter Frost :

I prefer if they respond here directly, but I emailed the authors. I will let you know if there's something new.