COGNITIVE ABILITIES TEST AND GCSE INDICATORS There has always been a significant and positive correlation between student’s scores in reasoning tests and their school performance, as measured by national tests or public examinations. The link may be assumed to exist because much school activity is concerned with the application of reasoning abilities in the initial learning of curriculum content, and then building on and recombining existing knowledge as learning progresses. The indicators are derived by tracking the progress of large and representative samples of students over time. Through this process, we can determine the actual relationship between CAT scores and students’ subsequent attainment in national tests and examinations. Through statistical analysis of the matched datasets, we are able to provide indicated or typical outcomes for each student based on the students’ CAT scores. These indicators can also be aggregated to provide indicated outcomes for the cohort and school or college as a whole. The proportions of students achieving GCSE grades A*-C has increased significantly in most years over the past decade and therefore these indicators are updated regularly to keep in-line with national trends of performance in national tests and examinations. There is a strong relationship between CAT scores and GCSE outcomes. The chart below shows the proportion of students 2011 achieving 5+ GCSE grades A*-C including English and maths for each mean CAT score. We can see that the higher the mean CAT score the greater the proportion of students who achieve five or more A* to C grades. For example only 13% of students with a mean CAT score of 85 obtain 5+ A*-C grades; in contrast about 97% of students with a mean CAT score of 115 achieve 5+ A*-C grades.

Copyright © 2012 GL Assessment Limited

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CORRELATIONS BETWEEN CAT AND GCSE OUTCOMES The strength of the relationship between two variables can be measured by a statistic called the correlation coefficient. A value of zero indicates no relationship between the two measures whereas a value of one indicates a perfect positive relationship. Table below shows the correlation coefficients between CAT standard age scores and students’ subsequent GCSE outcomes. The GCSE Capped Points score is based on points for the eight subjects the students recorded their highest grades (including English and Maths). The points for each GCSE subject are defined by the Department for Education using the convention A*=58, A=52, B=46 etc.

GCSE Capped Points Score 5+ GCSE A*-C Inc. English & Maths Art & Design Business Studies DT - Electronic Products DT - Food Technology DT - Graphic Products DT - Resistant Materials DT - Systems Control DT - Textiles Technology Drama and Theatre Studies English Language English Literature French Geography German History ICT Mathematics Media, Film and TV Studies Music Office Technology Religious Studies Science - Core Science - Additional Science - Biology Science - Chemistry Science - Physics Sociology Spanish Physical Education/Sports Studies Statistics

Mean CAT SAS 0.65 0.65 0.49 0.61 0.58 0.55 0.53 0.54 0.58 0.58 0.45 0.69 0.59 0.56 0.64 0.56 0.61 0.52 0.80 0.48 0.57 0.60 0.58 0.70 0.60 0.54 0.50 0.55 0.55 0.49 0.51 0.61

Correlation Verbal Quantitative Reasoning Reasoning SAS SAS 0.62 0.58 0.60 0.59 0.47 0.41 0.59 0.54 0.55 0.50 0.55 0.48 0.48 0.45 0.51 0.45 0.46 0.53 0.56 0.50 0.45 0.37 0.70 0.59 0.61 0.50 0.55 0.47 0.64 0.54 0.53 0.49 0.61 0.53 0.44 0.50 0.70 0.76 0.47 0.42 0.55 0.50 0.59 0.51 0.58 0.49 0.68 0.60 0.56 0.50 0.53 0.40 0.45 0.41 0.50 0.44 0.53 0.49 0.46 0.43 0.49 0.45 0.52 0.55

Non-verbal Reasoning SAS 0.55 0.55 0.44 0.47 0.50 0.46 0.46 0.49 0.52 0.51 0.37 0.56 0.47 0.45 0.53 0.45 0.49 0.43 0.71 0.37 0.48 0.51 0.46 0.58 0.49 0.41 0.38 0.43 0.42 0.39 0.41 0.51

The correlations are all highly significant. Most GCSE outcomes tend to have their highest correlation with mean CAT score. The exceptions are English Language and English Literature where CAT Verbal Reasoning score alone gives a slightly higher correlation than mean CAT score. Copyright © 2012 GL Assessment Limited

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ACCURACY OF GCSE INDICATORS The probability charts for maths below illustrates the chances of getting a GCSE maths grade for students in various CAT score bands.

CAT scores and GCSE Mathematics Probability Charts Mean CAT scores