The Individual Report maps how well a student has performed on the different questions within a test. Although the Individual Reports for all PATs/STAR/S:TwE look quite different, they are all built on a set of common concepts. When viewing the individual report for PAT:Reading Comprehension, users view the graph displaying student reponses and statistics.
The Individual Report displays the questions against the PAT:Reading Comprehension scale (patc). The questions are grouped according to the genre/text they are associated with. The questions are positioned according to their location on the PAT:Reading Comprehension scale, determined by the level of skill and knowledge required to answer them. The Report Key explains student responses:
- Black circle - answered correctly
- White circle - answered incorrectly
- Grey circle - omitted
The student's scale position is shown by the dotted line which intersects the scale and the stanine score distributions for three different year levels.The green highlighting around the dotted line is used to indicate the margin of error associated with the student’s score. If the test could be repeated, we would expect the student to score in the range indicated by the highlighting, about two thirds of the time. Students who achieve very highly or very poorly on a test will have a larger error associated with their score and is less reliable. Highly capable or struggling students should sit the test that matches their ability level.
Typically, a student is more likely to answer correctly the questions listed below the line than above it. When a question is located well below the line there is a strong expectation that the question will be answered correctly. In contrast, it is very unlikely that a question located well above the line will be answered correctly.
Question types
The reports also colour code the questions to indicate whether they involve retrieval, local inference or global inference
- Retrieval questions require the reader to comprehend without needing to infer; that is, the reader matches the wording of the question to wording in the text.
- Local inference questions require the reader to comprehend implied information from within relatively small sections of text.
- Global inference questions require the reader to comprehend implied information from across relatively larger sections of text.
The question types provide some idea of what reading skills the question involved. It might be that students who have problems with questions involving global inference for instance, require some help in this area. There are many reasons however why a student may have answered a particular question incorrectly and further investigation should occur before any definitive conclusions are reached. It is important to consider the text when examining performance on the different questions. Students performance can be affected by their engagement in or knowledge of particular texts and text types.
By CLICKING on the SHOW QUESTION button in the righthand menu, users can switch between List View & Text View.
- Show List View : order for scale difficulty of questions, order numerically, group questions by text type
- Show Strand View: questions organised in Texts, order for scale difficulty, and order numerically
CLICK on a question number to reveal the question and the class responses.
Each question can be displayed by clicking on a question number. This opens the Individual Item Report for that question, which displays the actual question as presented in the test and provides a range of information about the question, and displays the multi-choice options selected by students. It also provides links to similar questions in the test.Understanding the report
Gaps and strengths
Evidence that a gap exists in a student’s knowledge could be indicated when a student has incorrectly answered a question that he or she was expected to find easy. Although it could also have been just a “silly mistake”, it should be followed up and investigated further. Similarly, when a student has correctly answered a question that was expected to be difficult it could be evidence that he or she has a particular strength in an area. Again, there could also be other reasons; for instance, the student may have simply made a lucky guess. It is possible that he has a gap in this area, which could be confirmed with further questioning.
NB: Each test covers two years worth of difficulty. If the questions students answered incorrectly are well above the dotted line, they may not represent gaps or next steps as students are not ready to understand the skilss and knowledge associated.