Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAP norms question

deleted for privacy

Could it be that the school is using local norms?

I was under the impression that the NWEA norms from 2015 were the only ones. In any event, we've been in conversation with the school and they haven't mentioned using different norms.

No but have received an official version of a a school report and then got a copy printed on the fly. His reading level was majorly higher on the unofficial version.

Interesting! I'm very curious as to why this happens. In my mind, it should all be the same, it's essentially calculations from a computer. (I'm by no means an expert in any of this.)

It is quite possible that your district uses local norms. The system routinely calculates district-wide (by grade-level) and school-wide means and standard deviations, so all the data for generating local norms is clearly accessible to a district that chooses to use them. Depending on the composition of your district, his percentile could be markedly different on local and national norms. His actual RIT scores should be the same.

MAP also allows for customizing the start date of school (and thus how many weeks of instruction a student has received at the time of assessment). It is also conceivable that a boilerplate scoring using the default start date may compare a student to the wrong group, with the result that the percentile obtained from the correct comparison group is different. For instance, if a district starts school in the beginning of August, students assessed there have had nearly four more weeks of instruction than have those in a district opening after Labor Day. Especially at certain grade levels, and for certain skills, comparing them to the same norms may give the early-starting cohort a little bump in the percentiles.

If the percentile difference is slight (and one point would generally be considered slight), then it is likely due to something in the category of the situations I've described above. Of course, it is disappointing to be on the wrong side of a one point difference. It may or may not be worth additional advocacy efforts, depending on your district and student circumstances, but if you do choose to pursue further advocacy, the tiny difference in percentiles is probably not going to be a productive focus for your efforts.

My experience is that when it comes to interpreting test scores, school personnel rarely know anything beyond the bare minimum. I know that there are exceptions, but I've never encountered such a person in real life.

Thank you AEH, that makes sense, and would explain the discrepancy.

I’m most surprised that I’m apparently the first one to ask about this at our school. At least now they will have an answer. (Maybe most parents don’t typically google about MAP percentiles? I’m starting to feel a bit crazy. )

I am chiming in late, and the original post has been deleted for privacy. However, I was going to suggest that you request the NWEA "Student Progress Report" for your child. This computer generated report will show the Student Progress by grade and testing cycle, along with their RIT, RIT Growth (actual), Growth Projection (estimate), and Percentile Range for each subject tested. In addition, it will give you a bar graph with Student RIT, District Grade Level Mean RIT, Norm Grade Level Mean RIT. It will also give you a rating on individual components of each subject, including Lexile Range for reading. The growth over time is the most meaningful piece of information. If you look at the norm charts published, you can also follow the RIT scores across the grades if you are advocating for grade skips, etc. Hope this helps. Good luck!