Understanding Test Results

After an evaluator has completed an assessment of a child, he/she will compile the test scores, interpret the scores, combine this information with information that has already been gathered about the child, and write a report which summarizes and explains the findings. Sometimes these reports can be confusing and frustrating to understand. The following description and example will help give you an idea of what test numbers and terms mean for your child.

It is important to remember that tests are only tools, and that they are only a snapshot of a child's performance at the time the test was taken. Even though it is meant to show how a child performs on a regular day, sometimes the results of a test don't show us what we expected or are different from what we think or know about a child. For this reason, test results usually get combined with other information about a child that can help paint a better picture of how a child acts or thinks on a regular day.

 

NORMS

Norms are the guidelines most commonly used to interpret a child's scores. When we talk about "normal" or "norms," we are usually referring to an "average." Nearly everything that we might choose to measure can be put somewhere on a scale to find out where it falls compared to others.

For example, the height of adults ranges from three feet tall to eight feet tall. Most people, though, are between 4.5 feet tall and 6.5 feet tall. The mean (the average) height would be somewhere around 5.5 feet tall. If we drew a chart and put everyone's height on it, it would naturally end up looking like a curve; there would be a few really short people, lots of people that are medium height, and then fewer really tall people.

 

PERCENTILE RANK

Percentile rank is a number that is used to tell us where we fall on a curve when we are compared with other people. By looking at the height curve, we see that approximately 68% of all people fall within the average height range between 4.5 feet and 6.5 feet. If you fall in the 68th percentile, that means that you are in the middle and that most (68%) of the other people that were measured are close to your height.

Sometimes scores are not in the middle. If, for example, you were less than 4.5 feet tall, you would expect that you would fall in a lower percentile, such as 27. That would mean that if your height was compared to 100 other people, 26 people would be shorter than you, and 73 people would be taller than you. If you were taller, you'd be in a higher percentile, such as 84. That means that out of 100 people, 83 would be shorter than you, and 16 would be taller than you. A percentile rank is just a number that tells us where we fit in when we are compared with others.

 

AGE-EQUIVALENT and GRADE-EQUIVALENT NORMS

Test scores can be reported in a variety of ways. It is very common when assessing children to use either age norms or grade norms. Age equivalent and grade equivalent norms are often used when comparing children, and deciding how they are the same or different from other children their age or other children in their grade. The norms are figured out by looking at the mean ( average score) that children got at a certain age or in a particular grade.

For example, if all of the children in a seventh grade class took a test and the average score was a 85, a child that got a score of 85 would be thought to have knowledge of math at a seventh grade level.

If we gave the same math test to a group of children and the average score for 10 year olds was a 70, the average score for 11 year olds was a 75, and the average score for 12 year olds was an 80, a child that gets a score of a 70 would be thought to have knowledge at the level of a 10 year old, even if the child was actually older or younger than 10.

When we use age- or grade- equivalent norms, there are many things we have to think about.
1. Children learn and grow at different speeds at different ages, so the difference between 2nd and 3rd grade equivalent scores might be far different than the difference between 11th and 12th grade equivalent scores, even though there is still only one year difference between each grade.
2. Because advancement does not occur uniformly in all areas, comparing grade-equivalent and age-equivalent scores isn't always going to be reliable. For example, it isn't always true that a child who gets a fifth grade equivalent score on a math test with addition and subtraction problems can also do fifth grade math mulitplication and division problems. Also, a ten year old with a mental age of six will differ from a normal six year old in size, strength, interestes, experiences, etc.

 

STANDARD DEVIATION

Standard deviations are represented by the Greek letter s. The standard deviation is a measure of how far a score falls from the average score that other people taking the same test got. Scores that are one standard deviation either lower or higher than the mean are still within the range of the "average" scores. When a score is more than one standard deviation away from the "average," the score becomes more significant. Just like thinking about how people's heights fall on a curve, there are fewer really high scores and really low scores than there are "average" scores, so the further away from the average the score is, or the more standard deviations away from the middle it is, the more it tells us about strengths or weaknesses on the test.

 

CRITERION- REFERENCED TESTS
While a norm-referenced test compares a child's performance to the average performance of children in the same grade or of the same age, some tests are criterion referenced. Criterion referenced tests show what a child is or isn't able to do. This type of test is different because it focuses on the child's individual performance, rather than how the child's performance compares with other children.

 

Even though test scores can seem overwhelming, understanding some of the basic terms and ideas behind the results can make them seem simpler. Also, stopping to get answers to these three questions can be helpful in making sense of test results:
1. What is the child's percentile rank?
2. What is the mean (or average score) and standard deviation for this test?
3. How does this affect my child in class?

While tests are designed to help us learn more about a person's strengths and weakness, they are only one tool that we can use to help us decide what the most appropriate educational setting is for a child. Test scores should be considered carefully, but at the same time as other information that we have about a child's strengths, weakness, interests, and other factors that will affect their educational experience.

 

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For more information on this or other topics related to the needs of children with disabilities, call or write Maine Parent Federation, P.O. Box 2067, Augusta, Maine 04338, 1-800-870-7746 (In-State Only) 207-623-2144 or email MPF at parentconnect.mpf.org.

This fact sheet is paid for through grants from the Federal Department of Education and the State of Maine Department of Education, utilizing funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

 

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