San Luis Valley Gifted Education Network Meeting October 17, 2013

 Ability tests are designed to measure the general reasoning abilities of students including memory, sequencing, patterning, making connections, and analyzing simple and complex ideas.  “These abilities reflect the overall efficiency of cognitive processes and strategies that enable individuals to learn new tasks and solve problems.” (Score Interpretation Guide, CogAT 7, 2013, p. 3)

 “ Scores that the tests yield are strongly related to school achievement.” (Helping All Gifted Children Learn: A Teacher’s Guide to Using the NNAT 2, Naglieri, Brulles and Lansdowne, 2008, p.5)  “Because these abilities are closely related to an individuals success in school in virtually all subject, CogAT results are helpful in planning effective instructional programs and adapting instruction to enhance the student’s chances in success in learning” (Score Interpretation Guide, CogAT 7, 2013, p. 3)

 Individual  Group  Paper and Pencil  Online  Tests with Verbal, Quantitative and Nonverbal items  Totally Nonverbal items

 The different types of ability tests are different ways to measure the general ability of a student. They are not measuring different kinds of intelligence.  Verbal tests use words to measure problem solving skills  Quantitative tests use numbers to measure problem solving skills  Nonverbal tests use pictures to measure problem solving skills

 Review these samples from the CogAT 7 s/cogAT7/pdf/CogAT7SampleItems.pdf  What are the thinking skills required to complete the various types of items?  Are the thinking skills particular to that type of item or are they the same among the different item types?

What thinking skills are required to solve this type of question? Are they the same or different than the other item types ?

 K-BIT 2 - Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test Verbal section – vocabulary Matrices – nonverbal Given individually by a person with testing experience

 Samples of many of these tests can now be obtained online by anyone who want to pay a fee for training materials.  Know your population and use ability testing information always in conjunction with an entire body of evidence.

WISC-4 Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children KABC II - Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children Stanford-Binet 5 The psychologist will help choose the test which best meets the needs of the student. These tests are usually used when students are being considered for both Special Education and Gifted Education.

 An ability test should be a piece of evidence that is in a child’s identification portfolio.  A whole grade can be tested with an instrument appropriate to the general population as a universal screener. This can be done at several grade levels in your district to assure that students who develop later cognitively are not missed in the id process.  A select group of students or an individual can be tested at anytime to gain more evidence for the identification process.

 When using an ability test as a universal screener select a test that best represents the nature of the population you are testing  Does your population have a large number of ELL students?  What kind of socio-economic background is represented in your population?  What is the ethnicity of your population?  How old are the students being tested?

 Use other pieces of evidence gathered about the student to determine which type of test to administer  What is the strength of the student?  How old is the student?  Is the student an ELL student?  What kind of economic background does the student come from?  Is the student also being reviewed for Special Education services?

 All ability tests contain some form of testing bias.  If students lack academic experiences, come from low socio-economic or minority groups use a test that has been proven to be reliable and valid with those students’ group.

 Use the correct level of the test for the student(s) being tested. NNAT 2 – p. 3 of directions of administration LevelGrade (s) AK B1 C2 D3,4 E5,6 F7,8,9 G10,11,12

 Use the correct level of the test for the student(s) being tested. CogAT 7 – See handout and use the average category even when testing for high ability students

 When testing K-2 students with paper-and- pencil tests, use consumable booklets to avoid any errors the student might make in recording answers on an answer sheet

 Examiners should be know how to and be experienced giving standardized tests.  They should read the directions for administration before giving any test.  Time limits for tests should be strictly followed if present.  All test materials should be stored securely in locked locations.  The test environment should be prepared so students are not disrupted during the testing process and so that the proper lighting and heating is provided.

 Many of these tests require complicated steps to correctly score them. We are recommending that unless you are trained to score tests you submit them to the publisher for scoring.  Many of the online tests are scored as soon as they are taken and results are available immediately.

 The raw score on this test is converted to the SAS – Standard Age Score – compares student’s score to others of the same age  Age Percentile Rank – national rank based on the SAS – this is where we are looking for the 95 th percentile  Review the scores for each battery separately – verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal to see strengths and/or discrepancies in the individual types of items  Use the age scores not the grade scores to avoid any confusion for accelerated students

‡ Inconsistent Response Pattern found in the items or subtests Targeted (Chance) Scores –very low raw score that could have resulted from guessing or random marking of test items – do not use these scores for instructional decision-making Λ Many items omitted – but a high score on the items attempted – can occur when a student is perfectionistic – check p. 7 of Score Interpretation Guide

 On the nonverbal battery Sam marked 45 of the 56 items correct and he obtained a raw score of 30 items.  56-45=11 omitted items on the battery so a percentage calculation is needed  30/45 =.667 x 100 = 66.7% of the items that he attempted he got correct  66.7 % is less than 80% so this score is probably a good estimate of Sam’s ability

 In the CogAT 7 reporting system an ability profile is determined for each student.  The Ability Profile is determined by using the median stanine of the student’s three scores and then looking at how the three scores compare. The scores can be the same, relatively the same, or extremely different. This gives more information about each student. The Score Interpretation Guide, pp explains more about ability profiles. Kim or Linda can help you interpret this information when you get the scoring reports.

 The raw score on this test is converted to a scaled score based on the level of the test administered.  The scaled score is converted to a Naglieri Ability Index (NAI) based on the child’s age.  A percentile and stanine score can be obtained from the norms tables of NAI scores. (Here we are looking at the 95 th percentile for identification)  The mean scaled score on this test regardless of age is 100.

 Helping All Gifted Children Learn: A Teacher’s Guide to Using the NNAT 2 will provide strategies to use to adapt programming to meet the needs of their gifted students.

 Instructional decisions should never be made using only one score alone.  The ability test used should allow students the best opportunity to show what they know.  While ability test scores are linked to success in school, CogAT publishers caution that making predictions about success should not be made for more than 1-2 years and to be especially careful making these predictions from scores obtained in the primary grades.