This article provides information on how to administer PAT Reading Secondary Transition Edition tests to your students.
The following topics are covered here:
- Preparation
- Instructions
- Collecting results
- Submitting results for ACER to mark and upload
- Manually scoring results
-
Supporting documents
- Test administration instructions
The test administration instructions linked at the bottom of this article provide further detail, including teacher scripts and troubleshooting tips.
Preparation
Plan your testing schedule. Students’ focus and energy levels are important factors in their capacity to accurately
demonstrate their ability on the assessment. For this reason, it is generally best to test students in the morning and not immediately before or after an exciting school event.
Before testing begins, you should check that the following materials are available for the test day:
- a copy of these administration instructions, a test booklet and an answer sheet for teacher use
- enough test booklets to provide each student with a personal copy
- enough OMR answer sheets for each student
- a supply of spare 2B pencils and erasers
- a watch or clock for timing the test
- spare scrap paper.
Instructions
Students are permitted 45 minutes to complete their PAT Reading Secondary Transition Edition tests. This should be enough time for all students and maintaining consistency in the time allowed will support better comparisons when analysing results. You may apply professional judgement in allowing a small amount of extra time if students require it.
- Tests should be administered under standard testing conditions with invigilation.
- Students are permitted to use pen/pencil and paper to make notes during the test.
If you determine that some students require changed testing conditions due to specific learning needs, these changes should be recorded for future reference. The process for determining and implementing any changes to test conditions should be consistent between classes and across the school.
Collecting results
Collect all test booklets, answer sheets and working paper. Set aside the working paper. Check to see that the answer sheets have been correctly completed.
Check the booklets for pencil markings. Store the test booklets for future use.
Submitting results for ACER to mark and upload
If you chose to have ACER mark the answer sheets with Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) answer sheets, this will allow for results to be uploaded into schools’ existing assessment accounts, providing reporting alongside tests
completed online.
You will need to complete a "test scoring school order form" and send this along with the completed answer sheets through to ACER for scoring.
The test scoring pricing is $12 per student with a minimum of 50 students. Scoring turnaround is between 5 to 10 working days.
Forward answer sheets to:
Test Scoring and Analysis (TSA)
Australian Council for Educational Research
19 Prospect Hill Road
Camberwell, Victoria 3124
Telephone: (03) 9277 5559
Fax: (03) 9560 5198
Email: tsa@acer.org
Web address: www.acer.org/au/tsa
Please submit a request with our team for assistance.
Manually scoring results
Alternatively, you may choose to request the score key document, this allows you to score the answer sheets manually, but you will not be able to load the results into your account for future comparison.
Please submit a request with our team to request the score key document.