You will often find the stanine score on a test record. The namestanine comes from "standard nine." There are only 9 possible staninescores, whole numbers from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest). Relating stanines to thenormal curve, each stanine score represents a wide band of raw scores andpercentile ranks. The middle stanine score of 5 includes the middle 20% of thenormal distribution. As the stanine score moves away from the middle, thepercent of the distribution included decreases. A stanine score of 1 or 9 onlyincludes 4% of the distribution.

Teachers may consider giving special attention to students who score inthe extreme bands. Stanine scores encourage teachers and parents to considertest results in more general terms than other scores discussed, such as thepercentile rank. The stanine eliminates fine distinctions -- which are oftenmeaningless -- between scores.