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.
The report is useful to:
- 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 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
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 measurement error and extreme values, meaning the distribution of achievement could look different if the assessment were to be repeated.