The Woodcock-Johnson math reasoning question section aims to help educators, child development professionals and other similar groups of people who work with students to determine the test taker's cognitive abilities. Additionally, educators may use this assessment to examine the student's academic achievement. Math reasoning questions specifically assess academic knowledge in areas concerning numbers, mathematical facts, recall and analysis. Schools and other institutions/organizations may use data from this test to place children in skill level appropriate programs or tailor curriculum and class content.
The specific cognitive, or mental and learning, abilities that the Woodcock-Johnson math reasoning questions assess include a number of visual, analytical and recall factors. Visual matching questions ask the test taker to visually discriminate between different numbers and find two same digits from a series of six. As a three-minute timed section, these mathematics questions grow from simple one number identification to as many as three digit numbers. Other math based questions include the numbers reversed section in which students must reverse a specific sequence of numbers. These questions assess memory or recall and performing mental operations.
Achievement oriented questions in the Woodcock-Johnson mathematics reasoning section focus on solving applied problems. Students must demonstrate analytical abilities in understanding, reasoning and performing math operations relating to spoken word questions. The test administrator reads the word problem to the student, who must then reason out any extraneous information, decide upon a suitable or appropriate method for solving the question and provide the correct answer. Unlike basic mathematical computation or simple operation problems, these questions assess the ability to perform a more complex level of thinking and analysis.
Scoring math reasoning questions, as well as other sections of the Woodcock-Johnson, can be done via the WJIII Compuscore and Profiles program. This software package is available for purchase along with the assessment from the test's commercial publisher, Riverside Publishing. Compuscore converts raw reasoning scores into derived scores and data that teachers and educational professionals may use for reporting. Additionally, the WIIIP (Woodcock Interpretation and Instructional Interventions Program) can enhance Compuscore data by linking scores with intervention techniques.