Testing/Assessments & Learning Standards
August 07, 2014

Fact Sheet 19: 3-8 ELA and Math Assessment Data Reports

Source: NYSUT Research and Educational Services

The State Education Department (SED) has released instructional data reports for the 2014 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics testing program. These reports can be accessed by your district through your Regional Information Center (RIC) and/or Level 1 data center. Teachers should request these reports from their principal. These secure reports will allow authorized school personnel to view, for each question that contributed to a student's score, whether the student answered the question correctly and the Common Core Learning Standard measured by the question. The reports will allow for raw score performance comparisons at the student, classroom, school, district, and regional levels. These instructional reports have been available in prior years but this earlier release will give superintendents, principals, and teachers more time to use the results when planning for this coming school year. The New York City Department of Education and the Yonkers school district serve as their own Level 1 Data Center and will have different reporting solutions and time lines.

Although each of the 12 Regional Information Centers (RICs) have made unique reports and services available to their districts, the RICs worked collaboratively to develop the following common data reports:

Individual Student Performance

For all students taught in a particular section or building, this report provides information related to students' individual performance. Each student's results are grouped by domain, cluster, and standard. The report is divided by type of question (multiple choice analysis or constructed response analysis) and then for each, by domain and cluster identifying the standard that is being measured. The report indicates the number of questions measuring the standard plus how many and what percentage the student got correct and incorrect. When analyzing data at the individual student level it is important to remember that this is a snapshot of a student's performance on one exam so, examining groups of questions that measure similar skills will give you more information about mastery of that skill than looking at questions in isolation.

Regional Gap Analysis

This report shows the percentage of total possible points earned for the district, as compared to the regional percent correct for each item. This district level report groups questions by the standard and skill being measured and shows for each question the percentage of students getting the question right in the district and in the region (RIC) and identifies the "gap" or difference. This data can assist
districts in identifying areas where the student performance was stronger or weaker than the region and can result in the development of regional expertise and the advancement of collaborative conversations with colleagues around best practices.

Released Questions Performance

This report provides performance information on each question released by NYSED and should be used in conjunction with the NYSED 2014 sample questions. The view highlights the distribution of responses for multiple choice and constructed response items. The report is divided by type of question (multiple choice analysis or constructed response analysis) and then for each question, lists the page number of the question and the Common Core Learning Standard it is measuring. The report shows, for multiple choice questions, the percent of students in the classroom that got the answer to the question correct and then shows the number and percent of students choosing each possible answer, highlighting the correct answer. The report also shows the percent of students that answered the questions correctly in the school, district and region and reports the "gap," or difference in percentage correct, between the classroom and the region. For constructed response questions the report does the same as for multiple choice but instead of reporting the distribution of responses it reports the distribution of points earned (full credit, or less than full credit by points) and reports percent of students receiving full credit in the class, school, district and region and the "gap," or difference in percentage receiving full credit, between the classroom and region.

Constructed Response Distribution

This report shows students' performance on constructed response items. The report shows aggregate performance within a domain and/or distribution of performance by standard, and indicates what percent of the possible points the students received in each.

P-Value

This report shows the p-value for each question. For multiple choice items, p-value is the proportion of students responding correctly. For constructed response items it is the mean raw score divided by the maximum number of score points for an item. The report compares the district performance on the item to the regional performance to reveal how similarly students performed on a particular question.

For a summary, including screen shots, of the instructional reports made available by the RICs, see http://www.boces.org/Portals/0/Web%20Docs/RIC%20Reports/NYSRICsCognos.pdf

Please note that these reports will be based on raw scores only. They will not include scale scores or performance levels until the statewide results are released later this summer. Please also note that
2014 raw scores are not comparable to prior-year raw scores. Since conversion charts are not continuous from year to year, prior-year conversion charts will not produce valid scale score or performance level results for 2014 raw scores.

Additional Test Questions Released

In addition to these reports, SED released approximately 50% of the 2014 test questions (an increase from 25% for the 2013 tests). Released test questions include explanations of correct and incorrect responses. Released test questions, along with the instructional reports described in this fact sheet, can assist teachers in identification of student strengths and areas in need of additional support and are an important component of a comprehensive approach to instructional planning and professional development. The 2014 released test questions are available at: https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-common-core-sample-questions

 

Source: New York State Education Department documents http://www.boces.org/Portals/0/Web%20Docs/RIC%20Reports/NYSRICsCognos.pdf.
And http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/ei/2014/earlyreleaseinstructionalreports.pdf