My 8 y/o daughter was recently screened for the G&T program in our district. It is comprised of a two step process. The
CogAT is administered district wide and anyone who scores above the
90%-ile is then screened using only the non-verbal portion of the
SAGES test. In order to be admitted to the program, one has to score in the
95%-ile or higher on the
SAGES only.
My daughter scores on the CogAT were:
Verbal: 96%-ile
Non-verbal: 99%-ile
Quantitative:81%-ile
Verbal+Non-Verbal combo: 99%-ile
Total: 97%-ileHowever, she scored in the
90%-ile on the non-verbal portion of the SAGES, so she was not admitted to the program.
It seems to me that whilst screening for G&T programs, you should use all the information available to make the determination. Disregarding the information gleaned from the CogAT can lead to kids who might do extremely well on the CogAT being erroneously excluded. You have two independent measures of non-verbal reasoning (which seems to be the important metric in our district's selection process) but only one is considered.
In my daughter's case, you have two disparate measures of this attribute; non-verbal reasoning measured in the 99%-ile on one test and the 90%-ile on the other. Both of these tests are normed on a heterogenous student population. The non-verbal CogAT has matrix reasoning, figure reasoning, and spatial reasoning type questions where the non-verbal SAGES is mostly Ravens Progressive Matrices type questions. Obviously the CogAT tapped into something that the SAGES did not emphasize as much (or she was having an off day
)
I know that there are other districts that have a two step process but in these cases, a combination of the two scores are used in making the determination. This seems like a much more accurate approach.
My question to the community is whether this unitary approach in my school district seems reasonable considering more information is available to make these determinations OR if they should think about considering the results of the CogAT screening as well.
Thanks in advance for any wisdom this forum can provide.
