Testing frequency

Our system is set-up to test a student's knowledge, in a given subject, to help determine areas of weakness where a student needs further assistance. Once a deficit is identified, we suggest teachers give that student guided instruction in order to improve growth in that area. The number of measures, and frequency of testing, was established to provide for what is a best practice timeline for growth and improvement to occur.

Along with a set number of tests, which align to the frequency of testing, our system only lets a student take a measure once. This is due to re-taking a test likely giving an artificially-inflated score due to familiarity with the material. This results in a higher score based more on practice than on actual improvement in knowledge and skill).

Because of certain testing needs, we understand some schools and states may require more frequent testing than we recommend. Below we list our testing recommendations followed by how to do repeat testing.

Testing recommendations

How often teachers assess students depends on two key questions:

1. How quickly is it reasonable for teachers to expect to see growth in a particular skill area and
2. How much actual intervention has the student received?

In all cases, of course, it is important that the student is actually receiving focused instruction to address their skill deficits if teachers hope to see an improvement in their performance over time. The more difficult the skill being tested, the longer the time should be between testing as students need to receive targeted instruction in order to help them improve their skills.

READING

1. Letter Names, Phoneme Segmenting, and Letter Sounds can be given as often as every week or two – because students are able to make rapid progress in these skill areas when they are receiving in-depth interventions to help accelerate their learning
2. Word and Passage Reading Fluency are assessing skill areas that take longer for students to improve. We recommend testing no more often than every other week with these measure types.
3. Vocabulary and both Basic and Proficient Reading, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.

MATH

For all math measures, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.

How to repeat testing

Because of our recommended testing frequency, and the number measures of that align to it, the only way to get more measures for testing is to re-administer a test. In order to do this, you will first have to delete a test and then have the student retake it. Doing this will remove the original score.

If you choose to delete a measure and then retest a student, the system will only retain the most recent score for the student. There is no way around this feature. The only suggestion we can offer in retesting and keeping multiple scores of the same measure, would be to export the student data and then cut and paste the data into like columns.

In order to retake a test, you will need to first delete the original test in order for a student to take it again. The original score will not be saved. Before you delete a test, you may want to first archive their scores.

If you want to keep the original test score, there are two options to save student data by either either printing off reports or exporting data into a .csv file.

1. Print all of the individual reports (but it does not include the parent report-those will have to be printed individually).

2. Export data into a csv file.

Printing a complete file of individual student reports can be accomplished by logging into your account, clicking on the Reports tab, then the Individuals tab. Next, scroll down the page past the list of student names to the “View All Individual Reports” link. When you click on this link the reports will be available to print as one continuous report. It won’t be as nice a result as printing the reports individually, but it will give you a single document to print.

You can print either a hard copy or choose to print the document, and then choose the option in the printing option to save as a pdf. One thing to consider is if you were to print off the student data you would want to make the “All Data” setting selection.There is a setting you can select to limit or expand the amount of student data you can view.

If you login to your account and click on the Reports tab, then the Individual’s tab, you will be directed to a page with a list of your students and the assessments they have taken. From there you can print off their data.

If you click on a student name, there in the upper right hand corner of the page will be a selection option that includes This Year, Last Year, and All Data. If you select the This Year option, you will only be able to view the assessments the students has taken for the current academic year.

Exporting Data

To export data, login to your account and go to the “Reports” section. Next choose the “Groups” tab. To the right of each group name is a link to do a “Data Export” by exporting a .csv file. Choose the group whose data you want to export and an Excel file in the .csv format will be downloaded to your desktop. A .csv format means a document has no formatting associated with it.If you want the additional ability to do an analysis of your data, you will need to save this document in an .xls format. In an .xls format, you can calculate things like average scores for your class and compare those to the score associated with the 50th percentile (“on-grade performance”). If you are unsure how to calculate these or which formulas to use in Excel, please do a Google search for instructions.

Deleting a Test

Once you have downloaded your data file, delete the test(s) and then they can be re-administered. The easiest way to delete a student progress monitoring measure or benchmark test is by accessing the student’s assessment history.

To locate this feature, login to your account and go to the Student tab. Next locate the student name in the “Students” column to the right (in this example it's Doe, John). To the right of the student name there is a blue magnifying glass icon (just to the left of a blue edit button and the red delete button). Click on that icon and a summary list of assessments for that student will appear in a drop down window.

If the assessment information is not immediately visible in the window, scroll down the page to find the list. Assessments that have a season in their title (Vocabulary 3_Fall) are benchmark tests and those that end with an underscore and number (Basic Reading 3_1) are progress monitoring measures.In this setting, there is an option to delete a student record. If you look to the right of the measure name you will see a trash can icon. If you select a measure for deletion, a pop-up window will ask, Are you certain you want to remove this test?  If you click OK, the measure will permanently be deleted from your account.

*Note: If you are deleting a student benchmark test in order to re-administer it, remember the benchmark testing window must be open in order for a student to retake a test. All you need do is extend the ending date of the benchmark window to include the date the test will be retaken. Then once the test is complete, return the end date to what it was prior to the re-administration of the test.