Changes to how we use progress and achievement tests (PATs)

The purpose for any assessment is to help inform teaching and learning. To give quality information that assists both students and teachers to focus on next learning steps. Raroa students consistently achieve well above the national average for Nationally normed tests such as PAT and as such we are looking more deeply into the data we collect to best show the ability of our young people.

While this message is about PAT testing it is important to remember that PATs are only one part of a much bigger picture of assessment and evaluation. Please refer to the healthy practice pyramid attached for the importance of various types of assessments.

As with everything, we do not make changes without researching first. We started looking into this early last year and have been working with NZCER (developers of the test) to fully understand how best to use PATs for the greatest benefits to the students and teachers.

This year we will be changing how we administer and analyse PATs. In the past the tests have been administered early in term one with all year 7 students sitting one test and year 8 students sitting another. Often the stanine is reported, which is not a true reflection of where the child is achieving and will not provide an accurate indication of progress later in the year.

Using PATs this way does not give us the full benefits available from the tests to achieve the above stated purpose of assessment. We will now be using scaled scores to give us a better understanding of where the student is achieving to assist with the students next steps in their learning and monitor progress made.

The main consideration when selecting a test is that the level of difficulty should be appropriate to the student sitting the test. Tests that are too easy or too difficult will not provide precise achievement measures. Instead there will be ceiling effects, where many students achieve perfect or near perfect scores, and floor effects, where students answer very few questions correctly. A test where students are able to answer many questions but also challenges them gives the best information. ie a mid range score.