Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Weird Scores

From http://www.nwea.org/assessments/map.asp

What is the RIT scale?
The scale NWEA uses to measure a student's progress is called the RIT scale, short for Rasch Unit. The RIT scale is an equal-interval scale much like centimeters on a meterstick. It is used to chart a student's academic growth from year to year.
If you would like more information on the RIT scale, refer to the following materials:
Hambleto, R.K. , Swaminathan, H., & Rogers, J. (1991). Fundamentals of Item Response Theory. Newbury Park: Sage.

Ingebo, G. (1997). Probability in the Measure of Achievement. Chicago: MESA Press

Wright, B.D. & Stone, M. (1979). Best Test Design. Chicago: MESA Press.

Visit http://edres.org/irt/ for introductory material about the item response theory and the Rasch model.

az1,
It's important to note that the RIT is not grade level dependent but the percentile (NWEA norm) is grade level dependent. I think that's the problem I'm having with my daughter's results.

Here's a good slide show about the MAP test and slide # 15 highlights the difference between RIT and percentile.

http://www.mvcsc.k12.in.us/nwea/datacoach

That link isn't working anymore. This is a similar slide but you'll need to click it a few times:

http://springfield.ccsdschools.com/.../site/hosting/Map1/teach_mod_8_03.ppt#44
or this
http://tinyurl.com/3gorbk

Mia,
Thanks for the warning and I had a steep learning curve last year while advocating for health and wellness issues at the school. It reminded me of a quote from the book �Straight Man� by Richard Russo. The main character was describing the university budget process and said, �This budgetary danse macabre, a semester-by-semester ritual is ridiculous. There�s no valid reason why we can�t be told the semester before if the soft money to cover all necessary sections of freshman composition will in fact be made available. To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.� There were a few other good quotes that captured the frustration in advocating.

So I�m going in expecting the gifted danse macabre but at least the district seems relatively progressive when it comes to gifted education. It�s the only district in the state with a magnet school accelerated cluster for full time gifted education (unfortunately it doesn�t start until grade 3) and there is a local chapter of the state gifted advocacy group. A nationally renowned psychologist in gifted issues practices in our town and is a coauthor of �A Parents Guide to Gifted Children.� He spoke at a gifted advocacy night held at the magnet school and the district�s website has some of his articles posted on the gifted education section. If we can�t get by roadblocks at the school, we�ll probably pay the big bucks for him to do an assessment and advocate on our daughter�s behalf.

In the meantime, I�m trying to be �patiently impatient� as was recommended in �A Parent�s Guide to Gifted Education.� I read another quote somewhere else that I�m trying to keep in mind:
�The essence of advocacy is to keep a conversation going.� Bob Babbage

I sent in letters to the school today asking for MAP test clarification so now I�m back to repeating the �patiently impatient� mantra to myself and providing enrichment at home.

Thanks for the explanation inky. I am waiting for the complete MAP testing numbers. I hope to get them this Friday. I pulled NWEA RIT for 2008 and the 2005 placement guidelines but am waiting to get the complete MAP "picture" on Friday. I will definitely be back with my scores, looking for advice on my next move.

Thanks again for the info.

You're welcome & good luck az1

The link I posted earlier about RIT being grade level independent isn't working now. Here's the same slide on another site. It's slide #44:
http://springfield.ccsdschools.com/.../site/hosting/Map1/teach_mod_8_03.ppt#44
or this
http://tinyurl.com/3gorbk

kcab, when I look at my daughter's scores from Spring to Fall I see what you mean. She had a RIT growth of 8 in reading and 4 in math.

It doesn't look too impressive when compared to the 5 point difference in reading and 6 point difference in math between end of year K median and beginning of year 1st grade median. It is impressive in comparison to an end of year 2nd grade median of 190 and 3rd grade beginning of year median of 192 (reading). Also when compared to an end of year 1st grade median of 178 and beginning year 2nd grade median of 179 (math).

Comparing to the expected growth for the grade level that coincides with the test scores makes more sense with what we saw.

For those of you who have been following this, I failed to mention an important piece of information in my initial post. The Spring 08 MAP scores I had were from a computer print out with the NWEA logo at the top. The Fall 08 scores were in a handwritten note from the teacher. It appears there was some renormalization of the scores below the NWEA level. I think this renormalization skews the data for high end scores. I'm trying to meet with the school to learn more about how the renormalization was done.

I just got confirmation from the school that they renormed the test scores based on five 1st grade classrooms.

I'm going to ask for details about how they renormed the scores. It doesn't sit right with me that they would renorm and not tell the parents when they gave out the new percentiles. If I hadn't looked up the NWEA data I'd have never known.

I was thinking that same thing, Dottie. Those are some pretty high cuts, that they have enough kids passing those numbers to get into the GT program at all! Easy enough way to phase out GT -- "You didn't make the 500 RIT score first grade cut-off, sorry!"