Using CAT data to improve your teaching - 02 - Making your data usable
Posted By Doug Belshaw On 27th March 2007 @ 21:44 In Guides | Comments Disabled
WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at [1] dougbelshaw.com...
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I’m going to assume two things in what follows: a) that you have read the [3] first post in this mini-series, and b) that you have the Verbal and Non-Verbal elements available from a CAT (Cognitive Abilities Test) your students have taken. All present and correct? Let’s continue then…
As mentioned in the introduction, when analysing data one should always have at the back of one’s mind that this data merely represents one aspect of the student. It does not tell the whole story, and should be used in a ‘broad brushstroke’ approach. You certainly shouldn’t be ‘data mining’ these results! The more useful data educators have on their students the better: it helps them to come to inform decisions about the best ways in which to help them learn. 
What we’re going to do with the Verbal and Non-Verbal CAT data elements is plot them against each other. This will turn them into an easy-to-understand graph that is useful at a glance, rather than an arcane bunch of numbers! All you need to do is to enter the student’s name, their gender, their teaching group and their CAT data. The spreadsheet does the rest for you. The following is a fictional example:
I have purposely entered data which results in the fictional students being equally spread over the four quadrants of the resultant graph:
Theoretically, this group would be very difficult to teach! 
The dotted diagonal line is a line of perfect correlation - i.e. students whose Verbal and Non-Verbal scores match exactly would be placed on this line. The circle in the middle is where most students will reside, as this is one standard deviation away from the national average of 100 for both Verbal and Non-Verbal.
Are you ready to have a go? Download the blank CAT mapping data sheet below and get started!
[4] In the next (and final) post in this mini-series I shall show you how to reach those students in the four different quadrants through various teaching and learning activities. 
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[4] CAT mapping data sheet: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/wp-content/CATmappinggraph.xls
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