IQ testing general school population - Gifted Issues Discussion Forum

Is it true a elementary school could knows the IQ of all the students?

Our principal said the school has several classmates who have 140 IQ. I said, "how do you know that"? She resonded, "by the IOWA s". I said how can that be when it's not above level testing? She responded we do "X testing" (I don't remember the name)

If this is true. Why did they do an IQ on DS?

IOWA's aren't IQ tests.

Well our entire school district takes the NNAT at K and 2nd grade level. And it is kind of an IQ score that ceilings at 150. A 140 on the NNAT is a unique score.

BUT to me it sounds like she's probably just throwing that out since she first threw out the IOWA and then threw out some other test name. If you observe in the classroom over a period of time, you should be able to tell if your child has academic peers. I volunteered in my son's 1st grade class every week for a year in a school that IDs 40% as gifted. He had some bright kids in his class, but no one needed the kind of acceleration he did.

Originally Posted by kimck

I volunteered in my son's 1st grade class every week for a year in a school that IDs 40% as gifted.

Lol! If you didn't live in a different state, I'd ask if your kid attended our neighborhood school. When we gave some thought to moving dd#2 back there, I spoke with the GT coordinator and told her that dd's GAI on the WISC-IV had come out at 148 the year prior. She advised me not to go with the neighborhood school again b/c so many of the other kids were gifted like her that they wouldn't be able to give her enough attention. Having had kids at that school, it was something like 40% ided as gifted, but I really, really doubt that 40% of our neighborhood kids have IQs in that range!

OP, the IOWA is presumably the ITBS or the ITED, neither of which will tell you someone's IQ. I'd be really skeptical that they had IQ tested any large # of the kids in the school. Even the group tests like the CogAT, OLSAT, NNAT, etc. do not give you an IQ score. They give you the child's "developed abilities" in relation to a norm group of the same age and/or grade. This is not IQ.

Our elementary school claims to know the IQ of all of the students. In the beginning of 3rd grade, they give everyone the Iowa and CogAt test. Any student that scores in the top 5 percent in Language Arts or Math on the Iowa, or over 130 on the CogAt is eligible for the "gifted" program, such that it is.

I agree that this can only be useful in identify the moderately gifted students, since the ceiling on the CogAt is pretty low... anything over 140 is suspect of hitting the ceiling. And I agree with kimck that 40% to 50% of the kids in our school are labeled gifted.

Such IQ testing is great for giving the MG students additional resources. It doesn't do much for the HG+ student except perhaps start the ball rolling for additional testing. The problem that we have in our school is that the teachers seem to think that gifted kids come in one flavor. They fail to see that HG+ kids are different, and need different resources, than MG kids.

Does anyone here know how a 140 score on something like the CogAt compares to a 140 score on the WISC? I know that the ceilings are different between the two tests, and that the CogAt is just a rough approximation, but I didn't know how the actual scores compare. For instance, I know a 140 on the CogAt could really be a 160 on the WISC due to ceiling effects. But can a high score on the CogAT, say 140, turn out to be 128 -135 on the WISC? Our school seems to think that a high score on the CogAt is the same as a high score on the WISC, and that Davidson-level scores are a dime a dozen.

I just wondered if this was why the schools think that there are so many peers for HG+ kids present? We are told constantly that DS9 is clearly gifted, but that he has many peers at his school.

Actually, the more highly gifted the child, the less a group ability test score correlates with an IQ test score. So, tests like the CogAT are good for distinguishing bright students, but not necessarily good for determining who is gifted.

I don't know if you could get a higher score on the CogAT than your actual IQ, though. That would be interesting.

I found this on Hoagies site:

Quote

Q: Is CogAT an IQ test? Are SAS scores IQ scores?
A: No. CogAT measures reasoning abilities. Although these abilities are central to all definitions of intelligence, the word intelligence implies much more. However, psychologists have never agreed on the definition of intelligence, so how much more should be included in an intelligence test is often debated. Further, the notion of IQ comes from an earlier set of procedures for indexing the rate of mental development. CogAT does not use these procedures. The SAS scale used on CogAT provides normalized Standard Age Scores for that fraction of the population that attends school. Although SAS scores are very helpful for professionals, nonprofessionals can confuse them with IQ scores, so they are generally not reported to parents and lay organizations. Percentile ranks and stanines are better suited for general audiences.

If I read this correctly, it seems like equating CogAT scores with IQ is like comparing apples and oranges. Not sure if this link from Hoagies might also be helpful in your research into this. http://www.riverpub.com/products/cogAt/pdf/cogATshort.pdf

My DS9 took the cogat in 1st grade. I saw no mention of IQ score. Did everyone else get IQ or are you just converting percentages to a number?

Our previous school district used the ITBS (Iowa) in 3rd grade. Before the students take the actual achievement test, they take a group administered IQ test, which produces a Cognitive Skills Index. When a student then takes the ITBS, the score is compared to the anticipated score based on the Cognitive Skills Index. In our school 127 on the CSI was considered gifted and 139+ pretty much ceiling, although 141 is the maximum score.

A group administered IQ test is really a way to screen kids for GT or for further testing. This was really what started us on the road of testing and accommodation. But I would argue that there are huge variances btw. kids who score a 139+ on the CSI because it is a quick written group IQ test.

Jen

you people are amazing. Thanks for the wealth of info.

The big difference on something like the CogAT vs an IQ test is the "developed" abilities portion of it -- indicating that the scores are contingent upon exposure and education. IQ tests purport to tap innate ability -- that which is not affected by education.