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I am in a similar situation - except we have already had the WISC-IV test which shows my dd9 to be gifted, and the school district doesn't want to take it into consideration! On the CogAT she scored 97% for quantitative, but 67%(!!) for verbal, which is her strength! The cutoff for HC here (also WA) is 98% on a cognitive test. You wold think her WISC-IV scores would qualify her (percentiles were VCI 99, PRI 99, WMI 99.8, PSI 98, and FSIQ 99.8) but apparently not. In addition, they don't allow appeals.
I need to get my hands on some studies that show weaknesses with the CogAT test. Could you post links to the studies you mentioned, or forward the emails to me? I'll private message you my email address. Thanks in advance!!!
-Tricia
What a ridiculous and horrible situation. I'll try to find the article I've read recently about the inaccuracy of the CoGat particularly within the gifted population and get back to you...
If these studies being referenced are not available as links, would anyone be able to post the names and authors of the articles/studies? I bet that I could find a way to get my hands on a copy through a research library and then post scanned copies somewhere so we could all see what is out there.
..."Group tests are generally normed on populations of all children, with relatively few gifted children among the mix. When taking group intelligence tests, gifted kids often "over-think" the questions, and perhaps make wrong selections. And since there's no individual tester to clarify unusual answers, the gifted kids often score lower on group intelligence tests."
Thanks, I think that Carolyn (Hoagies) was referring to the one study from the 80s on the OLSAT as well as anecdotal evidence such as we've found here when she wrote that. I mentioned that one OLSAT study in another recent thread here where this same issues with group tests was coming up:
Quote
Originally Posted by polarbear
I would also *love* to have whoever has mentioned here in the past a link re CogAT not being reliable as an indicator of true intellectual ability for HG/HG+ kids ... please please please share a link or cite the source. We were once in the very same situation - we're long past that at this point in my ds' school years, but I would so love to send that article back to his elementary gifted program teachers because I truly suspect there are quite a few kids missed for gifted programming in our school district every year due to CogAT.
We, too, are past the point where it matters for our kiddos, but I would also like to see those studies if they exist. I've never seen anything like that, but there sure have been a lot of people posting here over the years (and more as of late it seems) who have kids whose CogAT scores and WISC scores don't line up at all.
The only link I've found about group tests for gifted kids is really old and relates to the OLSAT, not the CogAT:
Quote: WISC-R Full Scale IQ scores, OLSAT scores, and OLSAT School Ability Index were available for 431 of the students referred for placement in 1985-86. Subjects were ages 6-16; 283 were male, 148 female; 273 were white, 158 black. Correlations between the two tests were statistically significant for all but the gifted group. [emphasis mine]
I'm not sure if this link will work, but this is a scanned copy of the entire original nearly 30 yr old study on the OLSAT vs. the WISC: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED286883.pdf
I don't know how familiar you all are with correlation coefficients, but essentially an "r" (correlation coefficient) of 0-.3 is considered a weak positive correlation between variables (as one goes up, so does the other, but the relationship isn't very strong or compelling), .3-.7 is a moderate correlation and .7-1 is a strong correlation, with virtually nothing having an r of 1.
For the average population (kids with average OLSAT and WISC scores), the r was strong. For the learning disabled and kids with low IQs, it was moderate, and for the gifted, it was weak positive or weak negative in the case of African-Americans gifted kids.
However, I am still looking for a study that looks at more recent norming versions of the WISC (this one used the WISC-R) or another individual IQ test vs. the CogAT and/or OLSAT and one that is not 30 yrs old.
Additionally, and this is just my own personal suspicion based on small amounts of data from other kids, I'd really like to see if high group test scores always correlate positively with high individual scores and not just the reverse. I.e. - I'd like to see if we are getting false positives off of tests like the CogAT as well as the types of false negatives that we hear of here.
Not the specific info for any study, but here is the language from www.Cogat.com - under the "Ability Profile System" link and then in my DD's case we looked up the 9E(Q-) profile. This language is included under the second paragraph:
"When students obtain an E profile, it is important to double-check the integrity of their scores. The section "For Additional Information" (below) directs teachers to parts of the CogAT Interpretive Guide for Teachers and Counselors that explain how to check (1) whether the students attempted most of the test items, (2) whether their score reports contain score warnings, and (3) whether the confidence intervals on their plot of scores (shown on the List of Student Scores and the Profile Narrative Report) are reasonable. "
I just checked under a 9E(V-) and the language is similar. Hope this helps some of you!
I fear that I, as usual, am dragging this off topic, so I am going to start a new thread about research re IQ tests vs. group tests. I'll link to it here in just a second once I have it up.
