Differences in Swiss and German children's intelligence as measured by the HAWIK-IV

The fourth edition of the Hamburg-Wechsler-Intelligenztest fur Kinder und Jugendliche (HAWIK-IV; Petermann & Petermann, 2007) is a German-language adaptation of the fourth revision of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003). The norming sample for the HAWIK-IV was composed of 1650 children in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In order to investigate differences in HAWIK-IV results between Germany and Switzerland, this study compared the test results of 126 children from each country (on subtests, index and full-scale IQ level) and examined scale intercorrelation patterns. Two out of 15 cross-sample tests for means as well as 17 out of 55 tests for correlations indicated significant cross-national differences. We concluded that HAWIK-IV can be considered a test that may be used in the different German-speaking language regions with no need to refer to separate norms.