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Reading the CogAT Report: A Parents Guide

This PowerPoint presentation is designed to help you read and interpret your students CogAT results. Each slide contains an image and a sound icon. When you click on the sound icon, the slide will be narrated for you. Lets learn to read the report!

1Reading the CogAT Report

Do you have your students CogAT score report in front of you? Good! Lets begin

The CogAT Test measures the level and pattern of cognitive development of a student compared to age mates and grade mates. These general reasoning abilities, which start developing at birth and continue through early adulthood, are influenced by experiences gained both in and out of school. The CogAT measures three different cognitive abilities. The verbal section measures a childs ability to remember and transform sequences of English words, to understand them and to make inferences and judgments about them. The quantitative section measures a childs understanding of basic quantitative concepts and relationships. The non-verbal section measures reasoning using pictures and geometric shapes. This section reduces the impact of language on the students score. The composite score is a total score for all three batteries.

2Reading the CogAT Report

This section of the report is dedicated to students age scores. Students are grouped by age in one-month intervals from 4 years 11 months through 18+ years of age.

The first column in the National Age Scores section shows the stanine scores. The stanine scale is a normalized standard score scale consisting of nine broad levels designated by the numbers one through nine. Stanines are provided to discourage over interpretation of small differences among student scores and percentile rankings. Thus, all students in the same stanine are considered similar. See the following slide for the stanine table used for the CogAT.

The second column in the National Age Scores section shows your students percentile rank for each section and the composite. A percentile rank indicates the percentage of students in the same age group whose scores fall below the score obtained by a particular student. For example, if your student obtains a percentile rank of 90 on the verbal battery, it means that 90 percent of students in the standardized sample scored below your student. A percentile rank of 50 is considered average.

3Stanine Table

Stanine scares range from a low of I to a high of 9. Stanines are groupings of percentile ranks. A higher stanine equates with a higher level of cognitive abilities development. A comparison of Stanines and Percentile Ranks are summarized in the table below:

StaninePercentile RankDescription996-99Very High889-95Above Average777-88Above Average660-76Average540-59Average423-39Average311-22Below Average24-10Below Average11-3Very LowDifferences in percentile scores can lead to over interpretation of small differences in scores between individual students or among scores for the same student. For example, there will be no observable differences in the classroom between a student who has a Percentile Rank of 45 and one with a Percentile Rank of 55. They would both exhibit average levels of development in a particular area. On the other hand, you would see observable differences in the classroom for students with more than one stanine difference in their scores. Three different students with Stanines of 9, 6, and 4 will show clear differences in the ways they approach learning and problem solving tasks, in the ways they interact with different instructional strategies and leasing environments, in the rate in which they learn, and in the amounts and kinds of help they need to learn successfully. Adapted from interpreting Cognitive Abilities Test Scores Riverside PublishingRefer to the previous slide for a discussion of stanine scores.4Reading the CogAT Report

This section also relates to your students AGE scores. It is a graphic representation of your students scores for each of the batteries and the composite. Scores for each section of the assessment are indicated by a diamond shape within a score band. The score band represents the confidence interval. The confidence interval is dependent upon individual error scores. Error scores represent the error of measurement for each student. These things affect error scores:The student responds inconsistently to items in the same battery (i.e.. if the student misses easy items but correctly solves difficult items)If the student does well on one subtest in a section of the test but poorly on another subtest in the same battery

Based on the score information in this section, a score profile is created for your student. Advance to the next slide for a discussion of the score profiles.5Reading the CogAT Report

This is where you will your students score profile. Advance to the next slide for information about the profiles that can be obtained on the CogAT.

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CogAT Score ProfilesCogAT score profiles identify both the level of the students scores and the pattern of scores across the batteries.

The Level of Scores is represented by the students middle age stanine across the three sections of the CogAT. For example, if a student scored in the 8th stanine for verbal, the 3rd stanine for quantitative, and the 5th stanine for nonverbal, the middle age stanine used in the score profile would be 5th.

The Pattern of Score is indicated one of the following ways:

A Profile: The students verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal scores are roughly at the sAme level.

B Profile: One of the three scores is either aBove or Below the other two. The students profile will either show a relative strength OR a relative weakness.

C Profile: There is one score above and one score below creating a Contrast. This students profile will show both relative strength and a relative weakness.

E Profile: If a B or C profile represents a point difference in the SAS score of 12 points or more, it is considered Extreme. An E profile calls attention to the scores difference.

After reading this slide, follow the link on the next slide entitled Using CogAT to Inform Instruction to view a short video demonstrating how to use these profiles to guide and inform instruction.7

Using CogAT to Inform Instruction Visit the link below to view a short video from the makers of CogAT about how the assessment can be used to inform instruction for all students.

CogAT: Link Assessment to Instruction

Visit the link on the slide to view a short video from the makers of CogAT about how the assessment can be used to inform instruction for all students.

8Reading the CogAT Report

The section is comprised of information regarding the number of items in each section of the test, the number of items attempted by the student, and the raw score (or number of correct responses).

Footnote symbols may be found next to the raw score for a particular student on particular section of the CogAT. See the following slide for a guide to these footnotes and what they mean.

9Footnotes

Information from the University of Minnesota website: http://oms.umn.edu/oms/mstp/tests_and_services/ability_tests/cogat6/footnotes.phpReading the CogAT Score Report

This section of the report is dedicated to students grade scores.

The first column shows the stanine. The stanine scale is a normalized standard score scale consisting of nine broad levels designated by the numbers one through nine. Stanines are provided to discourage over interpretation of small differences among student scores and percentile rankings. Thus, all students in the same stanine are considered similar. See the slide 4 for the stanine table used for the CogAT.

The last column shows the percentile rank for each section and the composite. A percentile rank indicates the percentage of students in the same grade whose scores fall below the score obtained by a particular student. For example, if a student obtains a percentile rank of 90 on the verbal battery, it means that 90 percent of students in the standardized sample scored below that student. A percentile rank of 50 is considered average.

11Reading the CogAT Score Report

This is a written description of how to interpret your students score report.12Reading the CogAT Score Report

We hope you found this information about your students CogAT scores helpful. Please contact your students teacher for more information. Thanks for viewing this presentation!13