CAPS Abilities Printing Update

We are excited to present the largest structural change to the printed CAPS Abilities assessment of the last 20 years: each subtest is now printed on standard paper!

We found that most paper administrations of the CAPS were being scored by administrators rather than the examinees, so we decided to phase out the two-sheet tear-apart carbonless copy framework, greatly simplifying the paper CAPS assessment process. Instead of requiring administrators to juggle a multitude of torn-apart sheets, each set of CAPS responses remains stapled together in a single booklet. We have also opted for a more traditional scoring process: each order of the CAPS now contains a separate answer key booklet for administrators. Finally, while pencils are always recommended because they can be erased, this new format allows participants to take the assessments with the writing utensil of their choice.

To be clear, this change is purely cosmetic. The items are exactly the same, and we reconfirmed that the CAPS norms did not need to be updated this year (see below). Of course, these changes do not apply to those administering online assessments through the EdITS Assessment Platform.

Continuing Research: Refreshed Comprehensive Career Guides and New Norms

Alongside the new CAPS printing, we have also prepared a new version of our Comprehensive Career Guide. The job titles section has been refreshed in a larger font with a new layout, all to enhance readability. We also took the opportunity to introduce new occupations and update some of the outdated job titles, better reflecting the standardized data on O*NET today. 

We regularly conduct internal research on our data, ensuring that the percentiles we associate with each score are actually representative of our current users. After norming analyses were conducted on data collected between 2022 and 2024, we determined that the COPS Interests score distribution was different enough to justify an update. These new norms are already live online, and will appear in the Copyright 2004, Version 2024 edition of our Comprehensive Career Guide. Conversely, these analyses allowed us to re-confirm the norms for the CAPS and COPES – in other words, people have tended to respond in a similar way as they did between 2018 and 2022, so we did not need to modify these norms for the new Guide.