AASD students in grades four and six took the MAT-7 (Metropolitan Achievement Tests, seventh edition) in October, 2001. Results will be shared with parents by way of the "Individual Student Report" sent home later in the school year. Parents will be invited to attend a test interpretation meeting with the school counselors. Counselors will give a presentation about interpreting the scores and then be available to answer questions.AASD students in grades four and six took the MAT-7 (Metropolitan Achievement Tests, seventh edition) in October, 2001. Results will be shared with parents by way of the "Individual Student Report" sent home later in the school year. Parents will be invited to attend a test interpretation meeting with the school counselors. Counselors will give a presentation about interpreting the scores and then be available to answer questions.
For those who may be unable to attend the meeting, a summary of the presentation follows.
MAT-7 is given over a three-day time span. Testing takes place in the child's own classroom and is administered by the classroom teacher. It is intended to measure the achievement levels your child has reached in various subject areas. On another day, students take the Otis-Lennon, which gives a measure of school ability.
(Click here for information about the Otis-Lennon School Ability
Test.)
Mat-7 is a standardized test, meaning that every child who takes this test works under the same conditions (directions, time limits, format). Your child's performance can then be compared to the typical performance of other children of his age and grade level.Subject areas tested include: vocabulary, reading comprehension, math concepts and problem solving, math procedures, prewriting, editing, and composing.
To make the scores easier to understand and use, the test publisher summarizes the results in several ways. Some of the types of scores that you see on your child's report are particularly useful to teachers, others to the school district for assessing the achievement of large groups of children and tracking progress over time, and some will be helpful to you, the parent.
In reviewing the results from a standardized test, it is important to remember that these are the results from work your child produced at that specific time, under the standardized testing conditions. There is no way of accounting for undue anxiety, slow rate of reading, not feeling well, or lack of effort. The scores reflect only "one piece of the puzzle. " Equally important to consider are the report card grades, daily classwork, motivation, interests, behaviors, and feedback from your child's teachers.
TYPES OF SCORES
Scores on a standardized test are not "passing" or "failing" scores, but only a comparison to what was typical for children in the same grade.
NS=National Stanine
The stanine is a scale from 1 to 9 that roughly estimates achievement. Scores of 1, 2, or 3 generally are considered below average; 4, 5, or 6 are average; and 7, 8, or 9 are above average.
The Grade Equivalent represents the grade and month in the school year of students in the norm group whose test performance is like that of this student. For example, if a fourth grade student obtains a GE of 6.7, it means that this student's performance on this test section matches the performance (number of right answers) that would be typical for a child in sixth grade, 7th month of the school year (April) if the sixth graders would be given the exact same test.*** PLEASE NOTE THAT A GRADE EQUIVALENT SCORE DOES NOT MEAN THAT THIS STUDENT SHOULD BE WORKING ON SIXTH GRADE LEVEL MATERIAL -- It does tell us that this student answered more questions correctly than would most students in the fourth grade.
The Normal Curve Equivalent is a number ranging from 1 to 99. The NCE scale conincides with the National Percentile scale at 1, 50 and 99. NCE's are more suitable than percentiles for making comparisons between different tests and levels.
The Scale Score is a number ranging from 0 to 999. As the basic score for MAT, the SS is used to derive other scores. Because it relates performance to a single scale, the SS may be used to measure growth between successive testings and to track achievement from grade to grade.
The Percentile Rank shows the percentage of students in the national or local sample whose scores were lower than this student's score.*Please note that the Percentile Rank does not reflect the percentage of items answered correctly.
The National comparison includes the entire United States; the local comparison includes just the Altoona Area School District.
****Please be aware that special education students (gifted support as well as learning and emotional support) were scored in separate groups from the regular education students. As a result, their local percentiles compare them only to students in their specific group. Because these groups represent such a small number of children, the local percentiles will vary greatly and other types of scores will be better representations of the child's achievement picture.
The AAC Range shows how a student's achievement compares to the achievement of other students who have the same measured academic ability.
This score is a measure of verbal and nonverbal ability to do school-related tasks.
These descriptions (Independent, Instructional, Frustration) give a general indication of the reading levels which might be most appropriate for this student.
Specific questions on the MAT 7 are designed to measure three kinds of thinking: knowledge, understanding, and ability to analyze information. Your child's raw score compared to the number possible is shown. This score translates into a category: Below Average, Average, Above Average.
Copyright by School Counselors, Altoona Area School District clange, Webmaster gsprankle, AASD Web Architect
Revised: January 1, 2003
