The Year Level Report allows schools to compare all of their students’ scale achievement at a particular year level with the scale achievement of the national reference group. In Terms 1, 2 & 3 the reference group will be the same year level as the students. In Term 4, the reference year will be the following year as those results are closer in time, having been collected in Term 1. The Year Group Report makes use of Box Plots.
It is important to be aware that students reported on in the Year Level Report do not have to have taken the same test. To construct the report, raw marks have been converted to PAT scale scores, which can be compared regardless of which of the tests in a PAT series was originally taken.
Multiple year levels can be shown in the Year Level report along with multiple filter options - ethnicity, gender or year levels.
The report is useful to begin an inquiry into the dataset. It provides an overview and by strategic use of filters, you can often identify cohorts that require further investigation. There is so much data in the available reports, using a focus/cohort is an efficient way to proceed.
- Drill down into cohorts using multiple filters to compare scale position and scale range of cohort students
- Gain a class, cohort or schoolwide overview of the scale range in line with average scale benchmarks/curriculum levels.
- Show multiple year levels for composite learning areas or schoolwide overview
- Use the range of Box Plot statistics to provide more specific achievement goals and evidence of shift over time
- Remove the National Reference Data to encourage teachers to compare cohorts within the school - e.g. why is this cohort doing well and yetthis one is not
Schools with small numbers of students at a particular year level (20 or less) should take care when comparing their students’ achievement with that of a national reference group. Statistics for small-sized cohorts are more likely to be affected by factors such as extreme values (e.g.one child's score stretching out the whisker).