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

They mean "population size" not "sample size."

As far as education goes, they really need to follow individual kids and not just the districts to understand how education is doing. Then you can correct for both student and district effects.

Surely that's a mistake related to the changes in this site, no?

I wonder... views of ultimate brag thread: 3,418,331

That might be valid. It's a LOT of pages! I've probably looked at it 1000 times myself!

Adding to the MAP test info. I was looking for information about test ceiling for the primary test. Couldn't find it but came across this for the secondary test.

http://www.nwea.org/support/details.aspx?content=532
Scale Variance by Subject
Why do RIT scales vary from subject to subject (e.g. the mathematics RIT scale goes higher than other subject areas)? A ceiling effect exists when an assessment does not have sufficient range to accurately measure students at the highest performance levels. It has nothing to do with the actual numbers attached to the scale and everything to do with the position of students on it. For example, in reading, the RIT scale measures with relative accuracy up to about 245. This represents the 93rd percentile at grade 10, and the 95th percentile at grade 8. If a student scores above we know that student performed high but may not be able to accurately assess how high they performed. Relative to other tests, therefore, there is very little true ceiling effect in this assessment. Even most high performing 10th graders receive a technically accurate measure of their skill.

I'd read it this way: "most" means more than 50%, so if "high performing" means, say, above the 75th percentile, then of the high performing 10th graders, the fraction who receive a technically accurate measure, i.e. do not hit the ceiling, is (93-75)/(100-75), which is greater than 50%, i.e., most! It all rests on what the definition of "high performing" is...

I had the same question as Dottie when I read it and came up with an explanation similar to ColinsMum's. The main takeaway is that when a child scores around 245 in reading on the secondary test, that should be considered their lowest possible score. Their actual score could be a little or a lot higher, but it's impossible to know without using a different test.

I wonder what the math RIT ceiling for the secondary test is? 265??

I think there's a similar effect with the primary test somewhere around the 210 RIT level.

Here's another interesting post about the NWEA MAP.
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/search?q=nwea

The probability density graph is interesting as the bell curve flattens and standard deviations get wider as children move up in grade level.

When I looked at the SD on the national data, they seem to increase every year up to 8th grade then decrease. I wonder if this is due to the test ceiling on the upper end of the curve?

If an expert is someone who brings confusion to simplicity, then I must qualify

This added to my confusion:

http://www.nwea.org/support/details.aspx?content=914

It seems there are three levels of MAP testing and not two like I thought:
MAP for Primary Grades (K&1)
Standard MAP for grades 2-5
Standard MAP for grades 6+

So this would mean there are three different test ceilings that could come into play. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any guidance about switching a child who's performing near the ceiling to a higher level test. The guidance seems to be just based on grade (see page 6).
http://www.bransonschoolonline.com/filestore/branson_parentlettertesting.pdf

me too, but it seems there is a Grade for 2-5th garders? 6th and up?...thats how it comes across. Where is the teacher in all this? The Teacher should send an explaination...

The teacher's been in the loop but gets information from administrators who have given out some bad data in the past. I asked if DD7 could take the secondary test but was told it's past the test window and probably wouldn't have any effect on her score. I came across this today which seems to support my 210 primary MAP ceiling theory:
MAP Primary Ceiling

Choosing Appropriate Test

* Refer to prior data gathered on the student
* Discuss with prior teacher
* Pre-requisite test until the student has attained all foundational skills
* Skills test until the student has attained all foundational skills
* MAP for Primary Grades until they obtain a RIT score of 210 or no longer need the audio support