What is NNAT® or NNAT®-2 Test ?
What is NNAT Test? The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) is a non-verbal test that measures the cognitive ability of the students regardless of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Thus the test assesses the general reasoning and problem solving skills of the students through figures and shapes instead of pictures and words. After over a decade of research, NNAT was designed by education psychologist, Dr. Jack A Naglieri and published by Pearson Education in the year 2004. The most current edition of the test is the NNAT-2 that can be administered to K-12 students either individually or as a group and the scores are used enrolling them into gifted and talented educational programs. The
NNAT tests the reasoning and thinking abilities of the students regardless of what they are taught in school. 50% of the gifted and talented exams in the U.S. are made up by the NNAT-2. In order to maintain cultural neutrality the NNAT is based on minimum use of directions and language. Hence the test does not include sections of reading, speaking or writing but instead incorporates the use of abstract designs and shapes to make way for an unbiased scoring system without taking into consideration the child’s education, language and socioeconomic conditions. The NNAT makes use of only two colours – yellow and blue, in the test in order to ensure an unbiased testing approach for students facing issues of colour vision impairment.