Domains and item analysis

To find out what questions correspond to certain domains and test items, you will need to go to the Group Report.

Once students have completed an assessment, go to the Reports tab and select “Group”. Then, click on a test name. The window will open, extending beyond the view on the bottom of the screen. Scroll down the page and you will see “item analysis” report, which is where each specific type of item measures a different category. For more information on reading and math tests, scroll down the page. For more detailed information, please refer to Group Reports on page 84 of our easyCBM User's Manual

Reading

Reading comprehension looks at gaining 3 main types of information from student tests.

Literal Comprehension = information can be found directly in the text.

Inferential Comprehension = information that must be ‘inferred’ from more than one place in the text.

Evaluative Comprehension = information that must be pulled from more than one place in the text and then ‘filtered’ through a lens of ‘which is most correct, given the details and nuances in the text.

Math

easyCBM does not do a breakdown of math domains because the results of numerous empirical studies suggest that these sub-scores are not sufficiently reliable to be used to guide decision making. The issue is that there are not enough math items in each of the domains to enable reliable sub-scores to be reported (we would need to increase the length of the tests considerably to be able to provide sub-test reports with integrity).

For Basic Math progress monitoring, the measures focus on a specific math domain (such as Geometry, Measurement, Math Numbers and Operations, etc).

For Proficient Math progress monitoring, the measures have all of the different forms of math items from across the various domains. For these measures, we do provide a way for teachers to review the domains with which their students are struggling in our Reports --> Groups --> Item analysis table.

To get to the reports, click on the name of a test that your students have taken and then scroll down the page to the CBMs section and click on the name of the test to view the reports (by scrolling further down that page to the Item Analysis breakdown).