If you are applying for an educator license in one of the fifty states, you will need to know how to interpret standardized examinations for your teacher licensure test.
That is because interpreting score reports and understanding test results are important skills for educators.
Interpreting Standardized Test Scores
You may see the following terms on reports of standardized test scores: raw score, mean, standard deviation, percentile, and stanine.
Raw score
The raw score represents the number of questions that were answered correctly.
Mean
The mean is the average of two or more raw scores.
For example, if a student scores 80 and 90 and two parts of a test, we can calculate the mean like this: (80 + 90) ÷ 2 = 85
Standard deviation
Standard deviation measures the variation from the mean or average of all of the test scores for everyone who took the exam.
Percentile
The percentile rank of a score is the percentage of test-takers that scored the same or lower than the student in question.
For instance, a percentile score of 75% means that 75% of the test-takers scored the same or lower than a particular student.
Stanine
Stanine is short for “Standard nine.”
Stanine shows the student’s score on a scale of 1 to 9.
Standardized Test Scores – Sample Question
Ali has taken a standardized high school equivalency examination.
Use the report of his test scores below to answer the question that follows.
| Raw Score Part 1 |
Raw Score Part 2 |
Mean | Standard Deviation | Percentile |
| 185 | 205 | 195 | 15 | 82 |
Which of the following is a correct interpretation of the score report given above?
A. Ali scored as well as or better than 82% of the test takers.
B. Ali scored as well as or better than 85% of the test takers.
C. 15% of the test takers scored higher than Ali.
D. Ali answered 195 of the questions correctly.
E. Ali will perform well at college.
Ali answered 185 questions correctly on part one of his standardized test and had 205 correct responses on part 2 of his test.
The mean is the average of his first two raw scores.
We can check the calculation the mean like this: (185 + 205) ÷ 2 = 195
Standard deviation measures variations from the mean or average.
The percentile rank of a score is the percentage of test-takers that scored the same or lower than the student in question.
In our question, Ali’s score were in the 82th percentile, so Ali scored as well as or better than 82% of the test takers.
So, the correct answer is A.