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Generating the report
The Longitudinal Report allows you to observe your students’ progress within a learning area by comparing their scale scores from multiple testing periods over time. The Longitudinal Report is based on scale scores, so you may report on students’ achievement across different test forms within an assessment or learning area.
Follow the steps below to generate a longitudinal report from the Students page:
- Go to the Students page.
- Filter and select the students you wish to generate a report for.
- Click Generate Report
- Select the assessment from the menu.
- Choose Longitudinal Report.
- Select the time period to report on from the graph.
- The dates and numbers of all past test sittings for your selected students will be represented on the bar chart. PAT testing periods can be quickly identified as a bar or a cluster of bars on this chart.
- The total time period you specify for this Longitudinal Report should span from the earliest test sittings you’d like to report on to the most recent.
- Specify a 'cohort name' that describes the group of students selected to be included in this report, for example 'Year 8 2019'.
- Click and then Generate Report and then View report.
Recommendation
We recommend limiting your report to students in a single year level or class group at a time. Selecting all students, or students from across multiple year levels, may generate a report that is difficult to interpret and does not provide you with clear information.
Navigating the report
The Longitudinal Report is designed to allow you to easily compare students’ test results across multiple testing periods. Upon loading, the report will display a number of box plot charts from left to right across the screen. By default, each period will represent one calendar year.
The chart
Each box plot chart represents the spread of scale scores achieved by your selected students within that testing period. You can read these charts against the y-axis, which displays the PAT achievement scale for the assessment.
The table
The table below the main chart lists the names of all students included in this report, along with their achieved scale score for each testing period.
Where a student has not completed a test within a testing period, the table will display a dash in the place of score and test details. If you need to redefine or delete a testing period, click the ‘x’ at the top right of each column in the table. You can also click ‘Clear all selected periods’, to begin the process again.
Click the table headings to sort the information alphabetically by student name, or by scale score achievement for each period. You may also search specific students using the search box at the top right of the table.
Note
If a student has completed more than one test within the testing period, only the most recent sitting information will be displayed in the table and included in the corresponding box plot chart.
Understanding the report
The Longitudinal Report contains a number of features that will aid in analysing and understanding your students' achievement on their PAT assessments.
Observing cohort progress
The taller each box plot chart is, the greater the spread of your students’ scale scores for test sittings within that testing period. Likewise, if the box and whiskers of the chart are quite short, this means that your students were relatively close in terms of their demonstrated ability in the test area during that testing period.
The position and spread of each box plot chart can be compared to those of the others, allowing comparisons of your cohort’s results across different testing periods. A chart that reflects improvement in your cohort’s achievement over time would be one in which the box plot for each testing period is located higher on the scale than the preceding one.
Recommendations
To reliably analyse cohort progress over time, click Chart options and select the check box to restrict the report to only include students who have completed a test in each of the testing periods. If you do not select this option, the results of students who completed tests in some periods but not others may skew the data.
Observing individual student progress
To highlight the achievement and progress of individual students, click on their names in the table. Students’ scale scores will be marked in the report by an icon and joined by a dashed line so that you may see their progress from one testing period to the next.
If you click multiple students’ names, each student’s results will be identified by a differently shaped icon.
In cases where students completed more than one test within a single testing period, their most recent results in each period will be indicated by a larger icon, and earlier test results will be indicated by smaller icons.
You may also use the scatter plot chart to identify students based on their PAT scale scores in each testing period.
Switch from the box plot view to the scatter plot view by clicking Chart options.
Hover over each dot on the scatter plot chart to view the student and test details. Click a dot to highlight the other test results of that student.
Norm data
Compare your students' achievement to the national norm data by using the drop-down menu at the top left of the report – 'Set norm data for Period 1'.
After you specify a comparison year level for Period 1, the report will automatically populate the other periods with the comparison data for subsequent year levels.
For example, if you select Year 3 as the comparison group, and Period 1 corresponds to 2014, Periods 2 and 3 (corresponding to 2015 and 2016) will be automatically compared to the norm data for Years 4 and 5 respectively.
Note
It is important to select an appropriate comparison year level for your cohort according to the year level they were in during Period 1.