A SHORT-FORM OF THE WRAT-5 MATHEMATICS AS A TIME-EFFICIENT DERIVATIVE

Assessment of basic academic skills is an important component of a vocational evaluation,particularly when educational history and occupational background may not accuratelyreflect current potential. The Wide Range Achievement Test–Fifth Edition (WRAT-5) providesa standardised assessment of literacy and numeracy but can be time-consuming toadminister in full. The present study describes the development and preliminary evaluationof an abbreviated mathematics short-form derived from the WRAT-5 Mathematics subtest.Eleven items were selected to represent a graded range of difficulty corresponding to grade -equivalent norms from kindergarten to Year 12. Participants were 65 individuals (aged 16–66years) undergoing vocational assessment following a compensable injury. Item difficulty,internal consistency, and associations with demographic, educational, and cognitivevariables were examined. The short-form mathematics test demonstrated internalconsistency (Kuder-Richardson20) of .78 and showed meaningful associations with years ofschooling, post-school qualifications, reading achievement and independent measures ofintellectual functioning. No significant differences were observed by sex or languagebackground. The findings suggest that a brief, targeted subset of WRAT-5 mathematics itemsmay provide a time-efficient estimate of functional numeracy within vocational assessments,while recognising the need for further validation using larger and independent samples.