Age standardisation

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Trafford32
Posts: 36
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 1:58 pm

Age standardisation

Post by Trafford32 »

I searched for this on the forum and have seen some discussion, but I am still confused.

How much of a difference does month of birth make to the standardised score? Has anyone seen raw marks and standardisation comparison between month of birth?
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Age standardisation

Post by Tinkers »

It can make a fair bit of difference or no difference at all. It purely depends on the cohort and the type of test. There is no definitive answer I’m afraid.

All I can say is if there is a difference on how those of different ages do on the test then it gets taken into account. If there’s little to no difference then there is Very little to no difference to the standardised scores.
Trafford32
Posts: 36
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 1:58 pm

Re: Age standardisation

Post by Trafford32 »

Thanks. Generally, I would expect there to be quite a difference between two children with an almost 12 month gap, but I guess it depends on individual child.
turnip08
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2017 2:52 pm

Re: Age standardisation

Post by turnip08 »

I guess it depends but this is a reply I wrote re this last year in response to someone who wondered the same (relates to Kent so other test providers may take a different approach):

At least in Kent, doesn't make much of a difference... it varied by perhaps 1 std score difference for someone aged 10y10m/10y5m (this was for maths).. Also saw this reply from Kent Council:

There is a limit to the detail I can give, because we have an agreement with our test provider (a company which also carries out the national standardisation which is applied to Kent pupils’ results) that we will not share information which is regarded as commercially sensitive, and this extends to the standardisation process. If “ball park” information will help, though, the standardised score for each birth month puts the raw score in context with the performance of children the same age. If – as is often the case – older children slightly outperform younger ones when the test is trialled, the standardisation will reflect that, in that a slightly lower number of correct answers will yield a slightly higher standardised score for a younger child. The less the effect in trialling, the less the adjustment. The effect of standardisation is generally that a child at the August end of the range will get a slightly higher standardised score than a child at the September end, even if they got the same number of right answers. Usually the greatest range across the year group in an 11+ paper is 6 points, but with the tests we are using at present it is typically less than that.
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