PAT Reading Adaptive (2021) is underpinned by the PAT Reading construct, which allows educators to accurately and efficiently measure students’ abilities in Reading, to diagnose gaps, strengths and weaknesses in student learning, and monitor student progress over time.
PAT Reading Adaptive uses students’ responses to actively determine the content as they progress through the test. Each student sees their own mix of test items as they progress through one of dozens of available testing pathways.
The following articles provide more detailed information about using PAT Reading Adaptive effectively:
- When to test with PAT Reading Adaptive
- Choosing the right PAT Reading Adaptive entry level
- Administering PAT Reading Adaptive tests
- Using results from PAT Reading Adaptive
Related articles:
About PAT Reading Adaptive
PAT Reading Adaptive aims to measure the essential skill of reading comprehension. The assessments require students to utilise a variety of processes in a range of contexts as reflected by different written texts on an online platform. PAT Reading captures the range of skills competent readers adopt in the construction of meaning, from retrieving discrete pieces of information, to maintaining and developing understanding, to using previous knowledge in the critical evaluation of information.
The PAT Reading construct is the organising principle of the assessments; it is used to guide test development and structure the PAT reports. This structure is also part of the Progressive Achievement approach because the knowledge, skills and understanding represented in the assessments is designed to support educators in identifying student needs.
Four overarching elements guide PAT Reading assessment development:
- Strands
- Strand processes
- Text types
- Text formats
The PAT Reading Assessment Framework document linked at the bottom of this page provides further detail about these components.
Strands
Strands are the core competencies that form the foundation of textual understanding. There are four strands used in PAT Reading:
- Retrieve
- Interpret explicit
- Interpret implied
- Reflect
Strand processes
Strand processes offer a way of further focusing learning intentions. By being able to identify the processes by which students retrieve, interpret, or reflect on texts, you can achieve a finer grained understanding of students’ gaps and strengths within each of the core skill areas, and are therefore better able to target students’ learning needs.
Text types
A range of text types must be used when assessing students' reading comprehension abilities. PAT Reading assesses five text types:
- Narrative
- Information
- Persuasive
- Procedural
- Word or sentence
Text formats
Different text formats are used to reflect and assess different Reading processes. There are three text formats used in PAT Reading:
- Continuous (e.g. prose texts, made up of sentences and commonly organised into paragraphs)
- Non-continuous (e.g. lists, diagrams, graphs, advertisements and schedules)
- Mixed
Acknowledgements
Related article: PAT Reading copyrighted material
PAT Reading Adaptive is the most recently developed assessment to use the PAT Reading construct and builds on the earlier PAT Reading 5th Edition and PAT-R Comprehension (4th Edition) assessments. Sandra Knowles was the lead test developer. Trisha Reimers, David Kelly, Jude Alexander, Adam Wardell, Karin Halpin, Daniel Vine, Greta Rollo, Kathryn Miller, Brad Jackel, Roslyn Gross, Lynn Sendy-Smithers and Daniel Duckworth all made valuable contributions to the development of the test content. Siek Toon Khoo and Ling Tan led the psychometrics and methodology work. Steve Kambouris worked on PAT Adaptive design and item banking, Liang-Cheng Zhang on trial analysis, Fuchun Huang on trial analysis and testlet selection, and Clare Ozolins on PAT Adaptive norming. Other staff members who made valuable contributions include Penny Pearson and Kathy He.