Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment SCAT and yearly improvement

How much improvement did you see on the SCAT from year to year, and is there a way to see if there is "adequate" yearly improvement (I use that term very loosely)?

My DS8 just took the SCAT for the second time. The first time was 11 months ago. His math scaled went up 16 points, his verbal scaled only 4. I am guessing his math went up so much because he was accelerated and really has learned a chunk of new math skills in the last year. But I am concerned he has little challenge in language arts and the scores seem to suggest that may be the case.

On the other hand, his raw score went up 4 in verbal and only 3 in math, so ... maybe I am completely wrong?

I don't know about using SCAT for adequate yearly improvement - isn't it only 50 questions for Math and 50 for English? And isn't it meant to test reasoning instead of 'achievement?'

When your DS8 took the SCAT the first time, was it the same SCAT, for which grade level? Were the scores pretty high the first time? If so, it's hard to top a good score.

Do you have any other tests availible to use as a way to measure improvement?

Smiles,
Grinity

I see your point Grinity. I guess I was just thinking that if he is learning, he should improve %-wise, but I think you are right. First, there just aren't enough questions probably for it to be particularly valid, and second I am looking at %, which doesn't make sense since he is being compared to kids two years ahead regardless. Maybe I'll be able to tell more when I get the actual booklet from JHU-CTY.

I guess, since he is only accelerated in math, I was hoping I would have something that I could look at from year to year to see that he is actually improving (not in math, but more in the other areas). Does anyone think the raw score from EXPLORE might serve that purpose? He will take it next month.

And he rocked the math part of SCAT this time- 99% compared to the older kids. Only here do I feel like I can say that!!! I hope it will help us get a bump up in math another year (he will have to pass a placement test, but there is some hesitancy to even let him take the placement test, even though he has been doing great in his accelerated class).

Cat

I can see how exposure to additional math content should improve a kid's score on the same level of the SCAT math, but I don't think that you can really say the same for the verbal section. The SCAT verbal test covers only one type of language arts question--analogies. A kid could be learning quite a lot of useful language arts skills and content without any noticeable improvement in their ability to solve analogies. I would not be concerned.

MAP or Explore are probably more useful if you want to track year-to-year progress.

I appreciate the data link! My 5th-grade daughter just took the SCAT for the first time, and I wasn't sure how to interpret the numbers. She thought it was fun, so I figured she probably did fine. :-)

But looking at the distribution histograms from last year, it looks like her scores (480 verbal, 505 math) are actually pretty unusual for 5th grade. Does that seem right? Is there a lot of variability in difficulty from year to year?

Thanks!

I would totally agree with that. The SCAT is not extremely informative IMHO. Especially, that verbal section. My child scored high enough for awards in both areas. But a few months after that I had oral achievement testing done for some "real" data which was vastly more complete and informative (we homeschool so testing is required). I'm not sure I would use SCAT scores on their own to make any big decisions or for planning purposes. It was helpful to see similarly high scores on a couple other much broader achievement tests.

Interesting, thanks! Her raw scores were 47/49. She did take an IQ test as part of applying to her current school, and did a MAP assessment at school. (All scores were very high.)

Pardon me if this is naive, but what is the goal of early SAT testing? The whole testing world is a little foreign to me, and I'm hesitant to do to much of it. We signed up for the SCAT mostly because there's an appealing CTY summer program nearby.

Thank you so much, that makes a lot of sense. Right now we're in the fortunate position of not needing to advocate at school. DD's new GT school is giving her plenty of freedom to charge ahead, and she couldn't be happier. (We're in Massachusetts...I should probably post about that in the regional forum.)

Thanks for the insights everyone. Sounds like I shouldn't pay much attention to the verbal at this point (and stop worrying ).

It is too easy to focus too much on the numbers . . .

Cat

That's a good question. I think it varies from family to family. For us, the CTY summer camp for high school aged kids was the goal. I also wanted a test that I could use to see development, and like your situation, the SCAT just didn't have enough 'headroom.'

There is also the question of LOG - levels of giftedness. One would like to get an idea of 'how gifted' a kid is. It sounds like your daughter's school is geared to gifted children. That's great. Unfortunately, we sometimes see a school that is terrific for kids who score 30/50 on the SCAT, but doesn't 'see' that there is tremendous variability in the group called 'gifted' and doesn't provide enough challenge for high LOG kids to develop good work ethic. Sure it's fun to have fun at school and never break a sweat, but in the long run it probably isn't what parents want for their kids. A kid who scores 47/50 on the SCAT might turn around and score 500/800 on the SAT, or 600 or 700 or 780, and as you can imagine, that is quite a difference in what level of schooling they might need, yes?

It isn't about 'which kid is better' - it's about 'what does my kid need? Is the current school situation ok? If now, can I translate that vauge feeling of 'she's just going through the motions' into numbers that school personel might take notice of? If she doesn't seem to be making much of an effort, is it because she is lazy or because she is bored or because she is missing some basic skills?'

Make sense?
Grinity