Be aware of the potential misuses of CogAT results listed below and plan to avoid them:

Making instructional or placement decisions for a student based on CogAT scores alone – Instead, use many different kinds of information from a variety of sources when making major instructional and placement decisions about students.

Assigning students to classroom groups based on similar CogAT scores – The When Grouping, Aim for Diversity topic explains why this practice should generally be avoided.

Deciding which academic skills to teach a particular student based on CogAT scores – CogAT results can help inform how to teach students with different learning styles so they will have a higher probability of achieving appropriate performance objectives, but decisions on exactly which concepts and skills to teach should be based on the objectives of the local curriculum.

Making long-range predictions based on CogAT results – CogAT scores have positive and significant correlations with educational achievement and the level of education completed, so predictions over one to two years can be fairly accurate for scores that are not at the extremes of the score range. However, it is not appropriate to make predictions about the level of achievement a student is likely to attain several years later, especially from scores obtained in the primary grades.