Book Review: Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies

John Carroll's Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor Analytic Studies is a remarkable achievement that should be of interest to everyone in gifted education. Carroll reanalyzed 461 datasets collected in 19 countries over a 60-year period and synthesized his findings into the development of a three-stratum theory of human abilities. The work consists of 18 chapters organized into three major sections. The first section provides historical information on the study of human abilities and the methodology used in the reanalysis of the datasets. The second section discusses results in terms of a variety of domains of ability. The third section integrates the results by introducing the three-stratum theory and its implications. This review will highlight each section focusing on implications for gifted education. The first section, "Introduction to the Survey," which consists of four chapters, should be of particular interest to researchers in gifted education. The introductory chapter confronts the definitional problems surrounding words such as ability, aptitude, and achievement and provides useful distinctions among them. The initial chapter also develops connections between cognitive science and psychometric approaches to the study of abilities. The second chapter provides a succinct historical perspective on the study of cognitive abilities. In addition to well-known American (Thurstone, Guilford, Cattell, Horn) and British (Spearman, Vernon) researchers, the book includes European researchers such as Meili and Jager. The chapter also provides a brief introduction to prominent psychology tasks for studying mental processes. Chapter 3 provides the purposes of the investigation: 1) to assess what we know about cognitive abilities, 2) to consistently apply the most effective methodology in analyzing datasets, 3) to compare and organize various findings, 4) to relate the factor analytic findings to research findings in cognitive psychology, and 5) to relate the findings to issues such as the development of abilities over the lifespan. It also provides a description of the factor analytic methodology used in the reanalysis of the datasets. Although the methodology is clearly presented, familiarity with factor analytic approaches is necessary to appreciate the presentation. I believe researchers in gifted education who use factor analysis in their work can greatly benefit from Carroll's rationale for primarily employing common factor analysis with oblique rotation followed by higher order factor analysis. Researchers could also benefit from the thoughtfulness in which procedures are applied to fit the dataset in this investigation as opposed to the mindless reliance on default options in computer packages, which often occurs in the literature in gifted education. After explaining the methodology, Carroll provides several examples. Researchers in gifted education will note the lack of support for Guilford's Structure-of-Intellect model in several examples. Chapter 4 provides frequency analyses of the 461 datasets. In addition to country of origin and year of publication, sample sizes, participant grade level, participant ages, sample types, nature of dataset, number of variables, and types of variables are analyzed. The chapter also presents summary findings such as the total number of factors extracted (2,850) broken down by first order (2,272), second order (542) and third order (36), as well as the factor domains. Sixteen percent of the 2,850 factors extracted were identified as measures of general abilities. The section "The Identification and Description of Cognitive Abilities" should be of interest to researchers and academics in gifted education. In painstaking detail, Carroll delineates the results of the reanalysis of the data set for the domains of language, reasoning, memory and learning, visual perception, auditory reception, idea production, knowledge and achievement, psychomotor abilities and miscellaneous ability, and personal characteristics. Each chapter provides details regarding the particular datasets that provide insights into understanding a particular domain and examples of tests and tasks used as potential indicators of particular cognitive abilities. The chapter on idea production should be of special interest to those in gifted education since the majority of datasets that were reanalyzed were those of Guilford. Problems related to the measurement are also discussed. After presenting the results of the first order analysis, Carroll identifies the following higher order factors: general intelligence, fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, general memory ability, broad visual perception, broad