Assessments - Updated!

An assessment checks how a student is performing academically.  Assessment in PEMS are used to track how the school's academic program is delivering results.  Where many schools simply track the performance level of a student, PEMS tracks performance improvements.  PEMS is a system that monitors how the school is functioning in such a way that the school can constantly improve.

The key contributors

Contributors to studentStudent performance are as follows:

Performance

• Curriculum - did the curriculum, or Moodle course, provide a net improvement in academic scores.
• Engagement - did the student complete the course as planned.
• Program - does one set of courses provide better or worse outcomes than another set.

PEMS makes no assumptions about how the three factors above contribute to student academic performance.  Certainly these factors are interrelated, a student that engages more in the course will most definitely show greater improvement.

Programs are created in the PEMS as a set of classes the student takes over a few years. Program placement, or the readiness of a student to complete the program is critical to tailoringthe school's ability to tailor a program to a desired outcome.  For example, it is generally believed that taking art classes may stimulate learning in broad areas of study. If this is true, then students will have better program-level outcomes if they are also taking art.  Another example is the idea of writing-though-the-curriculum, which is an idea that if a student has writing assignments in every single class, learning outcomes will be superior.  If this is true, then a program that focuses on copious writing assignments will produce better results. 

Curriculum is created in Moodle,Moodle and courses may differ in their level of intensity, once course may require more writing, another may only provide auto-graded quizzes.  KeySome classes may have weekly teacher lectures, or weekly teacher check-in sessions.  Other classes may require printout and hand writing, or proctored exams. There are a great many differences in curriculum.

Engagement is multifaceted, it includes the grade the student achieved in the course, the total time spent on the course, and how much of the course gradethewas completed on time.  The environment a student studies in will also affect engagement, does the student do their work largely on campus or at home?  

Every school will want to select what assessments matter to their own academic vision.  In one school, they may only care about reading comprehension and math levels, in a different school they may prefer to test for spatial reasoning or artistic competence.  In selecting what a school tests for, the school is setting the goals that their program will be trying to reach.

Level Equivalent

Students are assessed for their progress towards acquiring the knowledge and skills of a high school graduate, a student who completed 13 years of schooling.  Given enough time and effort, all students can reach this standard.  Level equivalent is an idea that a student may be progressing faster or slower towards their goals.   If the student is progressing slower, they are behind their grade level, if the are progressing faster, they are above their grade level.  PEMS allows users to define the grade level equivalent for each score.

Assessment Code

PEMS tracks any number of assessments and relates each assessment to programs, subjects, curriculum selection, grade level and grade span. The assessment are defined in the assessment code table, and they may be linked to any combination of the above records.  The assessment code is a plan to asses a student for an indicator, it is not the actual student result.

Assessment Results

Each time the student spendcompletes an assessment, the user makes an assessment result record.  Which assessment the student takes is defined by the assessment code, and the results contains the students score.  The assessment also tracks when the student took the assessment, so that the students progress can be tracked over time.  Based on the course,date of the assessment result, the record is linked the the school term.  

This result should also be linked to the student term, not the school term so that the records may be displayed correctly on the transcript. This may be accomplished with automation based on the test date.

 

Marks Matrix

The marks matrix table allows the user to interprets the raw scores of each assessment in a consistent manner.  Multiple marks matrix records are created for each assessment code record.  Each mark matrix record specifies a low mark and high mark. If the raw score stored in the assessment result record falls inside the range of a specific marks matrix record, then the assessment result records will read the 'normalized' score from the mark matrix record and update the assessment result record.

For example, a student achieves a score of 240 on a  specific test with a maximum score of 300.  The test itself is represented by an assessment code record.   If a student is on track, a normal 9th grader, then the student should receive a score of 250. If the student received a score of 300, maybe the student is testing like a 10th grader. If the student has a score of 150, then the student has knowledge of 7th grader.  So this student, with a score of 240, may be about 8th grade, 6th month of school.