MAP: Explanation of scale and norms

What is a “RIT” Score?

NWEA stands for Northwest Evaluation Association
MAP® stands for  Measures of Academic Progress®
RIT stands for Rasch unIT, It is is a mathematical scale that is used to calculate student achievement.

When a student completes an NWEA MAP assessment, he or she receives a series of scores as a result. So, what is a “RIT” and what do the scores mean? “RIT” is an abbreviation for “Rausch Unit.” The difficulty and complexity of each MAP assessment question is measured using the RIT scale. A student’s RIT score indicates the level at which the student was answering questions correctly 50% of the time.

You can compare the performance of your child and school relative to:

• Spring-2013-International-Comparisons

Characteristics of the RIT Scale include:

• It is an achievement scale.
• It is an accurate scale.
• It is an equal interval scale.
• It helps to measure growth over time.
• It has the same meaning regardless of grade or age of the student.

This contextualizing of student performance helps teachers as they plan instruction for individual students, it allows us to confer with parents and enables us to create attainable goals for all our learners. This helps to support our school administrators as they can focus on allocating resources that empowers school staff as they work to improve all educational outcomes.

To find out more: RIT Scores