It is a test that clinically measures the cognitive, comprehension and logical thinking abilities of people between the ages of 5 and 70, regardless of their educational and socio-cultural background. The test has four different difficulty levels as S1, S2, S3, S4. It is assessed in different age groups. It is possible to compare the test findings with psychiatric or neurological patient standards.
This test, which is based on the comprehension and recognition of relationships between abstract visual shapes, measures the reasoning ability of individuals. The S1 form consists of 60 questions. In each question, the blank space in the figure shown on the screen is asked to be completed among the options. Since the speed of the test depends on the response speed of the subject, the test duration varies between 30 minutes and 75 minutes.
General Characteristics of the Test The Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) Test, developed by John Carlyle Raven in England in 1938, is a test that measures the intelligence of people living in different language and cultural levels. This test is considered independent of cultural characteristics (education, nationality, race, etc.) (Fould & Forbes, 1975). It is an equally useful test for people of any age, education, nationality or physical condition. The RSPM is considered to be the best test of Spearman's g factor among non-verbal tests of analytical reasoning.The test measures the speed of reasoning, problem solving, judgment, correct and organized thinking, abstraction, scrutiny and mental skills. The RSPM test has 5 sections marked with the letters A, B, C, D, E and consists of a total of 60 items. The SPM measures the ability to perceive shapes that may seem meaningless at first glance and the relationships between them and to find the missing piece based on these relationships (Öner, 1997: 150). Raven was influenced by Spearman while developing the SPM, but all the shapes in the test are his own. According to the researches, set A and the first half of set B measure perceptual processes, while the second half of set B and sets C, D and E measure analytical processes. Children as young as 8 years old, people with intellectual disabilities and very old people are not expected to solve the problems in sets A and B and the easy problems in sets C and D, where thinking by analogy is not required. Each respondent's score on the test is taken as a measure of his or her overall ability. The same questions are administered to all participants at their own pace, from beginning to end, without interruptions. The total score constitutes an index of mental capacity (Raven, 1960:74). In the test, students are expected to recognize the two-dimensional change in the test series by leaving one of the series in the form of a diagram blank. From the given options, the most appropriate one will be brought to the blank part of the series. As the questions progress, a complex structure emerges. RSPM is a test that requires the completion of patterns and each new question is asked on top of and as a continuation of the previous one and accordingly becomes increasingly difficult (Zaaiman, 2001). The test can be administered individually or in groups without time limitations. Children aged 6 years and under are not recommended to be administered as a group. After the age of 7, it is better to administer it in a group for children who do not have literacy problems. There is no need for detailed linguistic expressions in the application. Therefore, it is more successful than other tests in diagnosing gifted children with learning disabilities. Although the original version of the test was short enough not to be overly tiring or cumbersome, at the time of its development it contained enough difficult problems to distinguish between adults. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Flynn amassed accumulating evidence that inferential ability as measured by the RSM and other tests, whether verbal or nonverbal, was increasing by about one standard deviation per generation. This increase amounted to five standard deviations over the period up to 1992, when data were available for the Standard Progressive Matrices. This resulted in a ceiling effect among the more able adolescents and young adults. It was therefore necessary to develop more difficult problems to distribute the scores of this group. This version was published as RSPM Plus. The discriminative power that had eroded over the years as inferential ability increased worldwide was restored in RSPM Plus. Retaining the 60-problem cyclical format of the classic RSPM, the RSPM Plus improved discrimination power in young children and older adults.It remains relevant because it includes all the problems in the Parallel forms of Sets A and B. But the test also better discriminates today's more able adolescents and young adults (Raven & Court, 2004). After the original SPM test, the easier Colored Progressive Matrices Test and the more difficult Advanced Progressive Matrices Test were created. The Colored and Advanced Progressive Matrices should be used when more discrimination is needed at the lower and upper ends of the distribution (respectively).