About PAIS Mathematics
The Progressive Achievement for International Schools (PAIS) is a series of assessments in Mathematics that schools can administer to students on-demand multiple times per year and receive instant results. The tests enable teachers, parents and school leaders to longitudinally monitor the educational development of students.
The assessment is designed for students in grades/years 1 to 10. PAIS can assist educators in establishing the points that individuals have reached in their learning, in setting personal targets for further learning and in monitoring the progress that individuals make over time.
The PAIS program assesses and monitors the subject of Mathematics. The tests require students to think about topics rather than just recall information, and to apply their subject knowledge rather than just remember facts. Each test level has two forms that enable schools to administer two assessments at each year level per academic year. Tests from Grades 3–10 include international cohort comparisons and school performance benchmarking data.
The PAIS assessments do not follow any single national curriculum. This allows students from all countries to be compared fairly. Each subject has been influenced by curriculum content found in the national curricula of UK, Australia, Singapore, USA and others. However, the PAIS assessments are skill-based, not content-based and as such do not rely on specific content from the curricula. The PAIS program has a similar curriculum coverage with that of large-scale international assessments such as TIMSS and PIRLS.
View our webinar Progressive Achievement Approach and PAIS presented by Dr Jarrod Hingston.
PAIS scale
All PAIS scale scores and achievement bands are located on the same scale, which means that scale scores from different PAIS test levels are comparable within subjects enabling student progress in a learning area to be tracked over time.
It also allows students to undertake a subsequent test using higher or lower level test than their grade level and compare their results to their original grade level PAIS test. Selecting different test levels for students is an option that supports educators to obtain more diagnostic information and better focus their teaching on areas of need.
It is important to note that PAIS scale scores are not comparable between subjects, for example you cannot compare a Mathematics scale score with an English scale score. Each learning area has their own distinct scales.