The Norm Reference report is available for each of the Progressive Achievement (PAT) tests. This report provides information about how a year level of students compare, as a cohort, to other students in Australia in the norm reference data. The Norm Reference report shows the distribution of students along the relevant PAT scale using student scale scores; therefore, it can report on students across forms within a test.
Click here to view a video demonstration on Generating Norm Reference Reports.
This article contains information on:
- Generating a Norm Reference report
- Information within the Norm Reference report
- Interacting with the Norm Reference report
Generating a Norm Reference report:
- Click Reports at the top of the page.
- Select the assessment to report on.
- Select Norm Reference report.
- Select the Year Level to report on using the drop-down box.
- Select the Time Period to report on from the drop-down box. There are two ways to select a time period:
- You can choose a quick-select time period, for example the past 30 days.
- You can choose a date range by using the pop-up calendars to select the beginning date on the left calendar and the ending date on the right calendar. Once the date range you want is highlighted in blue, click anywhere on the screen outside the calendars to confirm the dates.
- Click the green Generate Report button on the lower right of the screen to load the results.
Information within the Norm Reference report
The report shows the distribution of your students’ scale scores in a purple box-and-whiskers plot along the relevant PAT scale. The information is also presented in table form at the base of the graph.
The length of the box represents the difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles so the middle 50% of scale scores for the group are within the box. The length of the box also shows the spread, so a larger box suggests that the middle 50% of scale scores are distributed along a wider range of the scale.
The line within the box is the median (or middle scale score, if all the scores were ranked), and spread is further suggested by whether this line is towards the top or bottom of the box. A median in the top half of a box suggests that, of the middle 50% of scale scores, more scale scores were towards the 75th percentile than the 25th percentile. That is, the 25% of scale scores located between the median and the 75th percentile were distributed along a shorter range of the scale.
The point at which the whisker line extends below the box indicates the 5th percentile. The point at which the whisker line extends above the box indicates the 95th percentile. These lines further indicate the spread of scores, as longer lines suggest a wider range of scale scores distributed along the scale in that direction.
Interacting with the Norm Reference report
Click on About this report at the bottom right of the chart to find a brief explanation of the box-and-whiskers graphs.
Click on Band Descriptions at the top right of the report to see detailed achievement band descriptions. Currently band descriptions are only available for PAT-R Comprehension and PAT Maths 4th Edition. You can find similar Scale Descriptions for other PAT assessments under the Help menu.
Hover your cursor over the box-and-whiskers-plot to see the 5th percentile, 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile and 95th percentile scale scores, based on your students’ results.
Click on a year level of Norm Reference Data on the left of the report to see a grey box-and-whiskers plot representing the distribution of scale scores for that year level of norm reference data. This allows you to compare the distribution of your students’ scale scores to achievement distribution in Australia.
Click on a student’s name to view their Individual Report.
Click Export at the top right of the report and select Export table as Excel file to get the table at the base of the report exported to Excel. Select Export chart as image to get the report’s graph exported. If you have selected Norm Reference Data to appear on the chart, this is the image which will be exported.