Iowa Algebra Aptitude Test - Iowa Testing Program

Iowa Testing Programs - The University of Iowa College of Education

Iowa Algebra Aptitude Test (IAAT)

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Purpose
The IAAT can help teachers and counselors make more informed decisions regarding the initial placement of students in the secondary mathematics curriculum. Any decision regarding "readiness" is extremely difficult. Clearly, in making such a decision regarding mathematics course placement, the recommendations of former teachers must be given greatest weight. However, these cannot usually be the only determining factor. Given the high stakes of such a determination, the decision makers should have as much information related to the mathematical abilities of students as possible. In nearly every case, some type of objective information to augment subjective judgments is desired.

Content Description
Using the Standards from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics as a guide, a pool of items was generated and tried out. This led to the construction of two equivalent forms of the IAAT, each containing a total of 63 items to be completed in 36 minutes. Each form consists of the following four parts.

Part A: Interpreting Mathematical Information assesses how well a student can learn new material presented graphically or textually.
Part B: Translating to Symbols requires students to choose an algebraic expression or equation that is the translation of a short verbal setting (word problem).
Part C: Finding Relationships presents a relationship between two sets of numbers in a table, and the students must find the general rule for the relationship.
Part D: Using Symbols tests whether a student has any common algebraic misconceptions.

Test Materials and Scoring
Schools who use the IAAT purchase the test booklets; they do not rent them as they do with ITBS and ITED booklets. So if the booklets are well maintained, they can be reused by a number of groups of students. Also, it may not be necessary to purchase a separate booklet for each student to be tested. Because these tests will most likely be administered in math classes, users need only have enough booklets to accommodate the class period in which the greatest number of students are enrolled in math classes. After the first year of participation, the only cost will be for the answer sheets and scoring.

Five scores are reported for the IAAT. There is a score associated with each of the four subtests and a composite score. The IAAT provides three types of derived scores in addition to the raw scores: standard scores and local and national percentile ranks.