Cognitive Abilities Test

The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), published by Riverside Publishing (http://www.riverpub.com), is a group-administered test appraising developed reasoning abilities. Its 11 test levels span Kindergarten through Grade 12. CogAT is the contemporary successor to the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Tests. In the spring of 2000, the sixth edition of the test was conormed with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Grades K–8) and the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (Grades 9–12). The standardization sample consisted of more than 180,000 students in public, Catholic, and private non-Catholic schools. When administered with either of the Iowa tests, CogAT discrepancies between observed and predicted achievement scores may be obtained for each examinee .

CogAT measures abstract reasoning abilities in the three major symbol systems used to communicate knowledge in schools: verbal, quantitative, and figural/spatial. It reports both age- and grade-normed scores for all three reasoning abilities, plus a composite score. Verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal reasoning scores are estimated by two subtests in the Primary Edition (Grades K–2) and by three subtests in the Multilevel Edition (Grades 3–12). Items in the Primary Edition are paced by the teacher and require no reading. Tests in the Multilevel Edition require some reading and are administered with time limits. Testing time for the Multilevel Edition is 90 minutes.

The test authors suggest that the most important uses of CogAT scores are (a) to guide efforts to adapt instruction to the needs and abilities of students, (b) to provide a measure of cognitive development that usefully supplements achievement test scores and teacher grades, and (c) to identify for further study those students whose predicted levels of achievement differ markedly from their observed levels of achievement. The first use is supported through several teacher guides and a Web-based system for matching the level and pattern of a student's CogAT scores to specific instructional recommendations (see http://www.cogat.com). Recommendations are based on recent summaries of the aptitude-by-treatment interaction literature. That literature shows that reasoning abilities in the symbol systems used to communicate new knowledge are among the most important aptitudes for success in school and thus interact with variations in instructional methods.

CogAT manuals provide considerable assistance in avoiding common mistakes when interpreting test scores. In addition to the Research Handbook (104 pages) and Norms Booklet (128 pages), there are an extensive Interpretive Guide for Teachers and Counselors (166 pages) and an Interpretive Guide for School Administrators (134 pages). A Short Guide for Teachers is available at no charge on the CogAT Web site (http://www.cogat.com). Scores on Form 6 are flagged if they appear unsound in any of nine different ways. One of the innovative features of CogAT6 is the introduction of confidence intervals for each score. The confidence intervals are based both on the conditional standard error of measurement and an estimate of fit. In this way, users are warned if the response pattern on a battery is aberrant for a particular examinee.