Identification Criteria Decisions Impact Cognitive Ability Profiles and Demographic Representation

• In Event: Challenges and Considerations for Creating Equitable Identification Systems

Abstract

Determining how school districts should design their identification process is often one of the most contentious topics in gifted education (e.g., Peters et al., 2023). Largely, this is because choices in the identification process can further impact representation rates for underrepresented groups in gifted programs (e.g., teacher referrals, AND rules, high cutoffs; McBee et al., 2014; McBee et al., 2016; Peters et al., 2019). The plethora of decisions that gifted administrators must make for identification includes the types of multiple criteria used, how those criteria are combined, which norms are used, and the cutoffs selected. Overall, we have found that decisions based on the type of criteria used (or what they exclude) and the way they are used can have an impact on the different cognitive profiles of students who are identified and the demographic representation of students from underrepresented backgrounds (i.e., students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Free/Reduced Lunch status).
Helio School District (HSD; pseudonym), a diverse midwestern school district, universally administers the MAP, the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), and The HOPE teacher rating scale in third grade. The district wanted to understand what would occur if they excluded the CogAT and only used the MAP and the HOPE scale with a mean combination rule and building norms. For this analysis, we isolated 12 different pathways with different criteria (e.g., Pathway 1 = CogAT [Verbal, Quantitative, Non-Verbal], MAP [Reading & Math], & Hope; Pathway 2 = MAP [Reading & Math], & Hope).
Overall, we found that including the CogAT identified students with higher cognitive ability scores than when the CogAT was not included in the identification process. We found that students identified with the CogAT had higher CogAT Verbal scores (M = 117.30, SD =9.08) than those who were identified for gifted services without the CogAT Verbal (M = 112.33, SD = 11.59), t(354) = 4.58, p <.001. We also found significant mean differences with students who included their CogAT Non-Verbal scores (M =122.78, SD = 10.67) in comparison to students who were identified for gifted services without CogAT Non-Verbal scores (M = 115.66, SD = 13.54), t(354) = 5.62, p <.001. There were no significant mean differences found between groups on HOPE or MAP achievement scores. Similar trends were found across other pathways (see Table 6-12).
Although the cognitive ability profile of students decreased when the CogAT was excluded, there was a slight increase in demographic representation from students from underrepresented backgrounds. For example, there were more Black students represented in Pathway 2 (RI = .43), than in Pathway 1 (RI = .11), as well as similar increases for Hispanic/Latinx/a/o students (Pathway 1: .37, Pathway 2: RI = .65) and students on Free/Reduced Lunch (Pathway 1: RI = .19, Pathway 2: RI = .33).
In sum, we found that identification systems need to make careful considerations on which assessments and weights are used to calculate the mean. Most importantly, cognitive ability profiles and demographic representation of students can change based on the criteria included in the identification process.

Authors

• Lindsay Ellis Lee, Advanced Learning Research & Consulting, LLC

• D. Betsy Mccoach, University of Connecticut

• Tamra Stambaugh, Whitworth University

• Matthew C. Makel, University of Calgary

• Scott Joseph Peters, NWEA

• Matthew McBee, Service Management Group

• Kiana R. Johnson, University of Minnesota