Stanine

Stanine (STAndard NINE) is a method of scaling test scores on a nine-point standard scale with a mean of five and a standard deviation of two.

Some web sources attribute stanines to the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Psychometric legend has it that a 1-9 scale was used because of the compactness of recording the score as a single digit but Thorndike^[1] claims that by reducing scores to just nine values, stanines "reduce the tendency to try to interpret small score differences (p. 131)". The earliest known use of stanines was by the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943.

Calculation

Test scores are scaled to stanine scores using the following algorithm:

1. Rank results from lowest to highest
2. Give the lowest 4% a stanine of 1, the next 7% a stanine of 2, etc., according to the following table:

Calculating Stanines

Result Ranking	4%	7%	12%	17%	20%	17%	12%	7%	4%
Stanine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Standard score	below -1.75	-1.75 to -1.25	-1.25 to -.75	-.75 to -.25	-.25 to +.25	+.25 to +.75	+.75 to +1.25	+1.25 to +1.75	above +1.75
Wechsler scale score	below 74	74 to 81	81 to 89	89 to 96	96 to 104	104 to 111	111 to 119	119 to 126	above 126

The underlying basis for obtaining stanines is that a normal distribution is divided into nine intervals, each of which has a width of 0.5 standard deviations excluding the first and last, which are just the remainder (the tails of the distribution). The mean lies at the centre of the fifth interval.

Use today

Today stanines are mostly used in educational assessment.

• The University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada used the stanine system until 2003, when it switched to a 4-point scale.^[2]
• In the United States, the Educational Records Bureau (they administer the "ERBs") reports test scores as stanines and percentiles.
• The New Zealand Council for Educational Research uses stanines.^[3]
• GL Assessment use stanines alongside SAS (Standardised Age Scores) to express the results of its CAT4 assessments, used in many UK and British international schools ^[4]

See also

• Sten scores - a similar system, but with 10 possible values
• Normal score

Notes

1. Thorndike, R. L. (1982). Applied Psychometrics. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin
2. http://www.registrar.ualberta.ca/ro.cfm?id=184
3. "Understanding Stanines", nzcersupport.org.nz
4. "GL Assessment"

References

• Ballew, Pat Origins of some arithmetic terms-2. Retrieved Dec. 26, 2004.
• Boydsten, Robert E. (February 27, 2000), Winning My Wings

Volume Six MEN AND PLANES THE ARMY AIR FORCES In World War II PREPARED UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF WESLEY FRANK CRAVEN JAMES LEA GATE Princeton University University of Chicago

Here is a link to the document: http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-101105-019.pdf