Construction & Standardization of Cognitive Ability Test (CAT

Volume 7, Issue III, June 2018, ISSN: 2277-1255
BHARTIYAM INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATION & RESEARCH

A quarterly peer reviewed International Journal of Research & Education
CONSTRUCTION & STANDARDIZATION OF COGNITIVE ABILITY TEST

(CAT)
*Prof. (Dr.) Madhu Gupta & **Bindiya Lakhani
Abstract
Cognitive Abilities are higher order brain based abilities comprising the traits of
awareness, perception, reasoning, thinking and judgment etc. This paper contains the
procedure to construct and standardize the cognitive abilities test for assessing the
cognitive abilities of students studying in secondary and senior secondary schools.
Different steps have been followed to develop and standardize the test as planning,
preparation, item writing, item analysis, final form of the test and interpretation of the
raw scores. Initially 81 multiple choice items were written for preliminary form covering
the five dimensions of cognitive abilities i.e. memory, awareness, understanding,
reasoning ability and problem solving ability. On the basis of unanimous decision and
suggestions of 20 subject experts, 75 items were retained. The draft of 75 items was
administered on 40 students studying in secondary and senior secondary schools to check
the understanding of the items. After this, the draft of 61 items was administered on 300
students studying in secondary and senior secondary schools. Final selection of the items
was done on the basis of t-test computation and 40 Items which were found significant at
0.01 level were selected. Reliability of the test was computed by using Test-retest method
in which reliability coefficient is 0.701 which is fairly high. The test was validated
against the face, content and constructs validity. z- Score norms have been prepared to
assess the level of cognitive abilities of students studying in secondary and senior
secondary schools.
Key words: Cognitive Ability, Item Analysis, Reliability & Validity

Introduction
Learning is considered as cumulative, self-regulated, goal-oriented, situated collaborative and
individual difference process of knowledge building and meaning construction. Students
vigorously process information, use prior knowledge abilities and skills in their learning
*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak, Email:

madhugupta1621@gmail.com
**Assistant Prof., Aravali College of Advanced Studies in Education, Faridabad, Email:
lakhani.bindiya@gmail.com 1
process. But ‘how to learn’ is the question that is addressed by the concept of cognition.
Education is no longer projected to focus on transfer of knowledge but to development of
cognition. Cognition is an essential psychological process which depicts to the inner process
and products of the mind that escorts to “knowing”. It is composed of different kinds of
processes such as perception, memory, symbolizing, categorizing, planning, reasoning,
problem solving, relating of one piece of information to another, ability to perceive bits and
pieces in association, ability to categorize the objects into assorted categories, ability to judge
and ability to make moral judgment etc. In other words, it is the activity of knowing,
acquisition, organization, attention, memory, coding, retention, recall, decision making,
reasoning, problem solving, imagination and planning. All these intellectual abilities are
called cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities are privileged intellectual abilities which are
concerned with cognitive task related to the mechanism of how to learn, pay attention, remember
and solve the problem. Simonton (2003)[11] explained cognitive abilities as certain set of
cognitive capacities that enable an individual to adapt and thrive in any given environment
and those cognitive abilities include abilities like memory, retrieval and problem solving and
so forth.
Several assessments have shown that cognitive abilities of children vary significantly across
the countries. These differences take place as cognitive abilities of the children considerably
exaggerated by biological and environmental factors such as heredity, sense organs,
intelligence, maturity, learning opportunities, financial status, various types of stimuli,
education, health facilities, family and society etc. In an individual, fully conscious, self-
regulated and self-directed mind is the indicator of developed cognitive abilities. Each
individual differs in cognitive abilities which describe the peak performance of the
individual. Although cognitive abilities are seldom taught explicitly in schools, research
indicates that schooling can promote the development of cognitive abilities in students. It
was found that cognitive abilities are related with all aspects of human life. Joshi and Sharma,
(2003) [4] found that there was significant difference in the cognitive development of boys and
girls. At certain age, boys are more developed in some cognitive abilities than girls. Anjum
[1]
and Rani (2003) found that child rearing practice have significant impact on cognitive
abilities. Garkar and Asheenna (2004) [2] concluded that rural students have higher cognitive
*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

**Assistant Prof., Aravali College of Advanced Studies in Education, Faridabad 2
abilities than urban students. Ravi (2004) [10] indicated that development of cognitive abilities
affects the reading practice and receptive skills in students. Manjula, Saraswati and Prakash
(2009)[7] investigated that cognitive abilities significantly affect the writing skills of students.
[3]
Gulsum et al. (2010) observed that parental education was significantly related with
cognitive development of the children. Kumar (2013)[5] explored that socio-economic status
of the family also related with cognitive development of the children.
The investigators studied and analyzed the various tools developed by various researchers to
assess the cognitive abilities. For the purpose Woodcock and Johnson developed Cognitive
Abilities Test (1977) [13], Cognitive Abilities Test (Cog AT) (2001) [6], Wonderlic Cognitive
Ability Test (2007) [12], Cognitive Abilities Assessment Sheet (MOCA) (2001) [8], Cognitive
Development Test (PCDTP-p) (2010) [9]. It was realized that these tools of cognitive abilities
do not have psychological and educational bases. They are based on judgment or rating either
self-rating or rating by others. Moreover, the tools which were constructed earlier are
measuring the intelligence or creativity under cognitive abilities. The tools of cognitive
ability, whether verbal or non-verbal, are traditionally loaded and are not completely
applicable to different cultures. Recent advances in the area of cognition have necessitated
the development of suitable tool to assess the cognitive abilities which would be specifically
relevant in every sphere. Therefore, keeping in the mind, the various cognitive abilities, it
was decided to develop a test to assess the cognitive abilities with five dimensions- memory,
awareness, understanding, reasoning ability and problem solving ability.
Objective of the Test

The main objective of the construction of Cognitive Ability Test (CAT) was to develop a self
-administering and self–reporting paper pencil test to assess the cognitive abilities of students
studying in secondary and senior secondary schools. In the present test, the items were
selected on the basis of cognitive abilities of school students.

Procedure for Test Development

To achieve the objectives of the present test, different steps were followed to develop and
standazie the test: Planning and preparation, Item writing , Item analysis, final draft, scoring
procedure , reliability and validity of the test and interpretation of the raw scores as shown
below:
Planning and Preparation of the Test

After extensive survey of available literature in the concerned area, five dimensions were
selected for the test. Details of which have been given below:
Table 1
Dimensions of Cognitive Ability Test (CAT)
Dimensions Operational Definition
of CAT
Memory Memory denotes the ability and power of mind to retain and
reproduce learning. The process of memorization begins with
learning or experiencing something and ends with its revival and
reproduction.
Awareness Awareness means to be aware of something or to be alert to
something. Awareness refers to gaining knowledge or descendent
of something. It is related to acquiring knowledge through one’s
own perception or by environment.
Understanding Understanding is personal opinion or interpretation of a subject. It
is related to perceive the meaning, grasp the idea to comprehend
or to have an organized interpretation.
Reasoning Reasoning Ability is the process of thinking about something in a
Ability logical way in order to form a conclusion or judgment.
Problem Problem Solving Ability is the frame work or pattern with in
Solving Ability which creative thinking and reasoning take place to reach a
solution. It is the ability to think and reason on given levels of
complexity.
Item Writing
Keeping in mind the five dimensions of cognitive abilities, the investigators developed 81
multiple choice items initially. The initial pool of items was given to 20 judges belonging to
the field of Education, Psychology and Language for suggestions. In the light of their

suggestions, difficult and ambiguous items were eliminated, slight modifications were made
and 75 items were retained for second draft. The test of 75 items was administered on 40
students studying in secondary and senior secondary schools to check the understanding of
the items. At this stage, some difficulties were raised by respondents and accordingly
appropriate changes were done. Thus, the draft of 61 items was retained for final tryout.
Item Analysis
The test of 61 items was administered on the representative sample of 300 students of
secondary and senior secondary schools. Subjects were requested to respond to each item and
responses of each item were scored in manner that score of one was awarded for each right
answer and zero was given for wrong answer. All the scoring sheets were arranged in
decending order. On the basis of the total scores of the subject, the two groups were selected-
27% high score group (top 81 students) and 27% low group students (bottom 81 students)
and subjected to t-test computation. Only those items were retained, which were found
significant at 0.01 level. Thus, out of 61 items, 21 items (not significant items) were rejected
and 40 items (significant items) were retained for final form of the test.
Final Draft of the Cognitive Ability Test (CAT)

In the final draft, out of 61 items, 40 items were found significant at 0.01 level and 21 items
were found not significant and removed from the test. In the final form, 40 items were
retained under five dimensions.
Scoring Procedure
There are 40 items in the test. There is a scoring sheet along with each test booklet. Students
are required to write the answers in scoring sheets corresponding to the question numbers
provided in test booklet. No answer should be given on test booklet. The answer would be
checked through answer key developed on transparency. It is required that answer key should
be placed properly on the scoring sheet. Each item has four alternative answers. Out of these
four alternative answers, only one is correct. If the pupil ticks (√), the correct answer, the

score of one would be awarded for each right answer, and if the pupil ticks (√) the wrong
answer, zero would be given. At the end, all the scores would be added.
Standardization of Cognitive Ability Test

For the standardization of the test, the test was administered on a randomly selected sample
of 300 students (both male & female) studying in secondary and senior secondary schools.
Statistical Results
Dimension- wise & for full test the statistical results have been given in table-2
Table-2
Dimension -wise & Full Test Statistical Results (N=300)
Sr.No. Dimensions of CAT Mean Sd
1. Awareness 5.65 1.48

2. Memory 5.47 1.47
3. Understanding 4.38 1.14
4. Reasoning Ability 5.46 1.44
5. Problem Solving Ability 5.54 1.53
Overall Scores 26.5 5.40
Reliability
Reliability of the test was computed by using Test-retest method on the sample of 100
students studying in secondary and senior schools after the gap of 4 weeks. The coefficient
of Correlation was 0.701 which is fairly high measure of intrinsic consistency of the test. The
reliability for various dimensions from Test-retest method for various dimensions varied from
0.748 to 0.885. The table-3 shows the reliability for each dimension.

Table-3
Dimensions-wise Reliability of CAT
Sr.No. Dimensions of N Reliability
CAT Coefficients
1. Awareness 100 0.829**
2. Memory 100 0.885**
3. Understanding 100 0.778**
4. Reasoning Ability 100 0.756**
5. Problem Solving 100 0.748**
Ability
Overall Reliability For Full Test 0.701**
**Significant at 0.01 level
Validity
The unanimity of 20 judges about the items taken as an indicator of face validity of the test.
For content validity, the dimensions were overseen by experts to assess the relevancy of the
items to the category to which they belong. The test can be considered to be valid enough in
terms of item validity because only those items were retained in the final form of the test
which was found significant at 0.01 level. Sample of respondents used for carrying out item
analysis, establishing reliability and for developing norms respectively was different entirely
from one another so as to avoid the chance errors of carry over the effect and hence, this
ensured the cross validity of the test. Construct validity of the test has also been measured.
For this, the inter correlations among different dimension of cognitive abilities have been
calculated and found significant at 0.01 level as shown in table -4

Table-4
Inter-Correlations among the Dimensions of Cognitive Ability Test (N=300)
Sr. Dimension Awareness Memory Understanding Reasoning Problem
No Ability Solving
Ability
1. Awareness -
2. Memory 0.770** -
3. Understanding 0.748** 0.604** -
4. Reasoning 0.899** 0.746** 0.757** -

Ability
5. Problem 0.775** 0.851** 0.606** 0.737** -

Solving Ability
**Significant at the 0.01

NORMS
On the basis of the above presented statistical results, z-score norms have been developed and
the same are being presented in table -5
Table-5
Raw Score & z-Score Norms for Cognitive Ability Test
Mean: 26.5 SD: 7.06 N: 300
Raw z- score Raw z- Raw z- Raw z-scores
Score Score score Score scores Score
00 -3.75 11 -2.19 22 -0.63 33 +0.92
01 -2.61 12 -2.05 23 -0.49 34 +1.06
02 -3.46 13 -1.91 24 -0.35 35 +1.20
03 -3.32 14 -1.76 25 -0.21 36 +1.34
04 -3.18 15 -1.62 26 -0.07 37 +1.48
05 -3.04 16 -1.48 27 +0.07 38 +1.62
06 -2.90 17 -1.34 28 +0.21 39 +1.76
07 -2.76 18 -1.20 29 +0.35 40 +1.91
08 -2.61 19 -1.06 30 +0.49
09 -2.47 20 -0.92 31 +0.63
10 -2.33 21 -0.77 32 +0.77

Norms for interpretation of the level of cognitive abilities and range of raw scores have been
given in table- 6 Table-6
Norms for Interpretation of the Level of Cognitive Ability
Sr.No Range of z-Scores Range of Raw Interpretation
Scores
1. +2.01 and above 38 and above Extremely High Cognitive Ability
2. +1.26 to +2.00 33 to 37 High Cognitive Ability

3. +0.51 to +1.25 30 to 34 Above Average Cognitive Ability
4. -0.50 to + 0.50 24 to29 Average Cognitive Ability
5. -1.25 to -0.51 20 to 23 Below Average Cognitive Ability

6. -2.00 to -1.26 16 to 19 Low Cognitive Ability
7. -2.01 and below 15 and below Extremely Low Cognitive Ability
Conclusion
Cognition is a basic psychological process. Cognition is the parasol term for learning skills,
ability to process information, reasons, remember and relate. It consists of individual way of
organizing and doling out the information as well as the experience. Cognitive ability is the
capacity to perform higher intellectual process of reasoning, memorizing understanding and
problem solving. It influences the personality of the individual. This paper deals with the
construction of cognitive ability test for secondary level students. Different steps were
followed to develop and standardize the test such as first try out, second try out, scoring item
analysis and final form of the test, standardization of the test and norm and interpretation of
raw scores. Construction and standardization of Cognitive Ability Test to assess the
cognitive abilities among school students in India will be of great importance for future
researchers who want to work in concerned in area. It would be also helpful for the teachers,
parents and other stakeholders to understand the construction and standardization of the test.
This paper helps in knowing the need for construction of the test by reviewing the previous
test of measuring cognitive abilities students studying in secondary and senior secondary
schools.

References
[1] Anjum and Rani, L. (2012). Impact of child rearing practices on the cognitive
abilities of children. Journal of Community Guidance & Research, 29(1), 265-271.
[2]Gakhar & Aseema (2004). Influence of self-concept stress, locality and gender on
the academic achievement and reasoning ability of adolescents. Prachi Journal of
Psycho-cultural Dimensions, 20 (1), 25-28.
[3] Gulsum, A., Tekkaya, C., Sungar, S. and Traynor, A. (2010). The contribution of
cognitive and meta cognitive strategy on students' science achievement..Educational
Research and Evaluation: An International Journal of Theory and Practice, 16(1), 1-21.
[4] Joshi, A. and Sharma, Y. (2003). Sex comparison of developmental trends of

cognitive variables. Psycho-lingua, 33(1), 38-48.
[5] Kumar, S. (2013). Cognitive styles of school teacher in relation to their social
background Journal of Educational and Psychological Research, 3(2), 4-7.
[6] Lohman, D. F. and Hagen (2001). Cognitive Abilities Test. (Cog AT). Retrieved
from www.hmhco.com.
[7] Manjula, Saraswati and Prakash, G. P. (2009). The cognitive profile of children
with reading and writing difficulties. Journal of Community Guidance & Research,
26(2).199- 202.
[8] Montreal (2010). Montreal Cognitive Assessment Sheet (MoCA). Retrieved from
https://www.bmc.org..
[9] Pandey, H. (2010). Manual for Pandey Cognitive Development Test. National
Psychological Corporation, Agra.
[10] Ravi, R. (2004). Cognitive abilities and their effect on receptive skills among
primary school children. Ph.D Thesis, Maharshi Dayanad University, Rohtak.
Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10603/101140.
[11]Simonton, D. K. (2003.) Human Intelligence, Historical influence, current

controversies, teaching resources-an interview with Dr. Simonton. In J.A. Plucker,
editor, Retrieved from http://www.indiana edu/~intell 2003.

[12] Wonderlic (2007). Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test. Retrieved from

www.wonderlic.com.
[13] Woodcock, R. and Johnson, M. E. B. (2014). Woodcock Johnson Test of

Cognitive Abilities. Retrieved from www.testingmom.com.


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Volume 7, Issue III, June 2018, ISSN: 2277-1255

BHARTIYAM INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATION & RESEARCH

CONSTRUCTION & STANDARDIZATION OF COGNITIVE ABILITY TEST

*Prof. (Dr.) Madhu Gupta & **Bindiya Lakhani

Key words: Cognitive Ability, Item Analysis, Reliability & Validity

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak, Email:

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

Objective of the Test

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

Procedure for Test Development

Planning and Preparation of the Test

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

Final Draft of the Cognitive Ability Test (CAT)

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

Standardization of Cognitive Ability Test

1. Awareness 5.65 1.48

4. Reasoning Ability 5.46 1.44

5. Problem Solving Ability 5.54 1.53

Overall Scores 26.5 5.40

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

**Significant at 0.01 level

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

3. Understanding 0.748** 0.604** -

4. Reasoning 0.899** 0.746** 0.757** -

5. Problem 0.775** 0.851** 0.606** 0.737** -

**Significant at the 0.01

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

2. +1.26 to +2.00 33 to 37 High Cognitive Ability

4. -0.50 to + 0.50 24 to29 Average Cognitive Ability

5. -1.25 to -0.51 20 to 23 Below Average Cognitive Ability

7. -2.01 and below 15 and below Extremely Low Cognitive Ability

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

[4] Joshi, A. and Sharma, Y. (2003). Sex comparison of developmental trends of

[11]Simonton, D. K. (2003.) Human Intelligence, Historical influence, current

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

[12] Wonderlic (2007). Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test. Retrieved from

[13] Woodcock, R. and Johnson, M. E. B. (2014). Woodcock Johnson Test of

*Professor, Dept of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak

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3. Understanding 0.748 0.604 -

4. Reasoning 0.899 0.746 0.757** -

5. Problem 0.775 0.851 0.606 0.737 -