Student Profiles

The profiles yield information that is especially valuable in helping you make instructional decisions and identify curriculum and student strengths and weaknesses.

The profiles that the Diagnostic Assessments yield categorize student performance in one of three ways:

Clearly on Track: Students meet the requirements of the grade-level indicators for a standard. For students whose scores show them to be Clearly on Track in terms of the concepts and skills indicated by a specific standard, you may revise your instruction to include activities that challenge them and extend their learning.

Further Assessment May Be Needed: Students may be close to meeting the requirements of the grade-level indicators for a standard, but they need to be assessed later to ensure that they remain on track. For students whose scores place them in the Further Assessment May Be Needed category, you may add opportunities during the day for them to practice applying the concepts and skills indicated by a given standard.

Needs Further Assessment and/or Intervention: Students need additional help to meet the requirements of the grade-level indicators for a standard. For students with scores in the Needs Further Assessment and/or Intervention category, you may need to strengthen the concepts and skills pinpointed by the profiles. In addition, you may want to explore options for more focused intervention.

Bear in mind, however, that the Diagnostic Assessments are not comprehensive. They do not provide a detailed evaluation of student performance on each grade-level indicator within a content standard. Rather, they are one part of a continuing process of observation, analysis and evaluation. By observing the processes that students use to arrive at their responses, you gain much richer information than the assessment scores alone can offer. Observation reveals how students approach tasks, which can be as valuable in shaping instruction as whether they answer questions correctly.

In planning a course of action based on the profiles, you should consider when during the school year the assessment is administered. Low scores at the beginning of the year may reflect that students are not ready for testing, not necessarily that they are off track. Later testing can determine whether this is the case. Low scores toward the end of the year, for example, indicate that you should identify and consider intervention options.