The CogAT Dashboard consists of several tools on one browser screen allowing you to make selections that display results instantly.
This article provides more information about the different aspects of the main display:
- Dashboard
- Filter bar
- Content area
- Percentage of students by age stanine
- The cut score box
- The Ability Profile™
Dashboard
This data can assist you in qualifying students for gifted or other special programs, differentiating instruction for all students, seeing how your students compare against the US national normative curve, and answering many other ability-related questions.
- Which students placed on or above our cut score?
- How do changes in our cut score affect our numbers?
- How did students fare on the individual batteries and on partial composites?
Filter bar
The top portion of the dashboard has multiple dropdown menus that offer different filtering options tailored to your needs. Options include Test Event, Grade/Level, Content, District, Building, Class, Students, and Population.
Content area
This table groups students by stanines for CogAT’s three batteries, partial composites of two batteries each, and the complete composite for the entire three-battery test. The numbers in the table indicate how many students are in each category. Each number in the table is a hyperlink that will take you to a roster list of those students’ names and additional score information.
Percentage of students by age stanine
This chart shows the distribution of the student group by stanines. The dropdown menu in the upper right of the window indicates the content area of shown in the graph.
Percentage of students (y-axis): This is simply the percentage of the students within the group (determined by the selections made in the Filter Bar above).
Age stanine (x-axis): This indicates students’ overall level of reasoning ability relative to other students their age. Stanine is short for ‘standard nine’. The name comes from the fact that stanine scores range from a low of 1 to a high of 9.
Interpreting stanine level
CogAT uses a US-wide sampling of test results (called "national norms") to calculate scores. Students are grouped by age in one-month intervals from 4 years 11 months through 18+ years of age. If a student achieved an ‘average’ stanine score (4–6), the test indicated that they performed at about the same level as other students their age who took the test. If a child achieves a stanine score that is ‘above average’ (7–9), they performed better than other students who took the test. A ‘below average’ stanine (1–3) means that the child had a lower performance than other students their age who took the test.
The cut score box
This window allows you to set a score or range of scores, providing a list of students that fall within the chosen parameters.
The Ability Profile™
This is an index unique to CogAT and captures two characteristics of the student’s scores:
- Level: the typical magnitude of scores on the three batteries
- Pattern: whether some scores are significantly higher or lower than other scores
The Ability Profile Distribution box is only available for teachers and building-level administrators.