Relative Strength indicates an instructional area (also known as goal area) where the student performed particularly well.
Area of Suggested Focus indicates an instructional area where the student's score was particularly low. These indicators appear in the
Instructional Areas section of the Student Profile report.
How are the relative strengths and areas of suggested focus determined?
We use a calculation that compares the overall RIT score and the RIT score of the instructional area, and their SEMs. If the RIT score for the instructional area is sufficiently higher than the overall RIT score, considering the SEM for both scores, that instructional area is a relative strength. If the RIT score is sufficiently lower, it is an area of suggested focus.
More calculation details are available in the MAP Help Center. See the
About Suggested Area of Focus and Relative Strength section here:
Student Profile: Next-Generation Report.
Why don't all of my students have both of these indicators?
These indicators only appear according to the criteria listed above. Some students will only have a relative strength or an area of suggested focus. Some students will have both, and some will have neither.
Is this the same as the bold and italic scores found in other reports, such as the Class report?
The idea is the same, but we calculate the relative strength and suggested area of focus in the Student Report slightly differently. The older reports use the standard error for the instructional area only, while the Student Profile report uses the standard errors for both the instructional area and the overall RIT score. See
Areas of relative strength and areas of relative concern.
