Using CogAT® Ability Profile™ Scores to Enable Student Growth

“Ability data provides educators a fresh and meaningful way to understand each student’s potential for learning and to easily differentiate instruction based on individual strengths." 

– Joni Lakin, co-author of CogAT form 8 

The Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT) was designed to empower educators with deeper insights into their students and guide their efforts to adapt instruction to best meet students’ needs and abilities. The key to adapting instruction is CogAT’s unique Ability Profile score, an indicator that concisely conveys the level and pattern of each student’s CogAT scores. Using the Ability Profile is an easy way to visualize the resources and abilities that students bring to their own learning and allows us to link students’ test scores to strength-based instructional strategies. 

CogAT appraises the cognitive development of students from kindergarten through grade 12. The test measures students’ problem-solving and reasoning abilities in the three cognitive domains most closely related to success in school: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and nonverbal/figural reasoning. By measuring three reasoning domains, CogAT provides a broad perspective on each student, identifying profiles of cognitive strengths and areas for growth that are critical for instructional differentiation and academic growth. 

The Ability Profile starts with a number from 1 to 9, where 9 is the highest, as an estimate of the students’ overall ability. A letter A, B, C, or E is an indicator of the pattern across each student’s verbal (V), quantitative (Q), and nonverbal (N) scores, followed by areas with a plus or minus to denote those areas that are relatively stronger or weaker for the student.  

• Approximately one-third of all students have an even pattern (A). Their scores are roughly the same on all three batteries. 

• About half of all students show a strength or a relative weakness on one battery (B). 

   

• The remaining students show an area of strength and a relative weakness (C). 

   

• A small number of students show an extreme strength or an extreme area of relative weakness (E). 
   

In general, students learn best when instruction emphasizes and builds on their strengths and supports areas of need. Our resources provide differentiation strategies to help students grow their skills in all content areas using their strengths. Understanding a student’s learning profile supports the teacher’s successful planning for how to have the student interact with new learning as well as demonstrate mastery. For example, a student whose profile indicates a relative strength in verbal ability can be encouraged to use that strength when working in other domains, such as mathematics. At the elementary level, that may mean practicing math facts aloud or answering questions aloud. Alternatively, the profile for a student who demonstrates relative strength in the nonverbal domain, stronger in figural and visual-spatial reasoning, suggests the student may prefer to show their thinking and learning with visual models. Elementary students with this profile might benefit from using manipulatives, and secondary students may gravitate toward science labs that allow for the kind of investigation that provides manipulation.  

 
Teachers can conference with their students to help them understand their own results and what that means for their learning. Students can then take some ownership in both challenging, stretching, and growing from their area(s) of relative strength and in actively working to support themselves in their areas of relative need. By learning strategies for both, students can step back from an assignment where they are struggling to remind themselves of the resources they possess to overcome a sticky problem. “Wait! Maybe I need to say this aloud for myself.” “Perhaps I can describe this with numbers.” “I’m going to draw a picture to figure out the steps in this assignment.” 

 
The Interactive Ability Profile Interpretation System is freely available on CogAT.com and allows educators, students, and/or their parents to input an Ability Profile score to learn more from CogAT test results, including strategies for learning both in and out of the classroom.