Assessment Module Overview

Relevant Definitions

Please review Assessment Function.

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 Type

The assessment Type field has the three options for the different types of assessments that PEMS supports. 

• Level Equivalent - assessment determines what grade level the student is actually performing at in the subject
• Percentile Rank - assessment determines the ranking against a larger population of students at the same grade level
• Competency - assessment is recording a student has completed a required competency for the grade span
  

Assessment Code and the Subject

Each assessment code record may only link to one subject, assessments codes may not be defined for multiple subject areas in one code.  When students take one exam that tests the student on multiple subjects, the school must create an assessment code record for each of the subjects the single test addresses.  When the test results are records, the user must create multiple assessment result records for such a test.  In General, tests that cover multiple subject areas provide individual scores for each of the tested areas.  Because an assessment code record only allows one score, multiple assessment code records are needed to record all available data.

The school does have the option to define subjects as very high level, in doing this one one assessment code record may be created for the high-level subject. 

Marks Matrix

The marks matrix table allows the the administrator to interpret the raw scores of each assessment in a consistent manner.  Multiple marks matrix records are created for each assessment code record are used to specify a range of scores.  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 parent assessment result record will read the 'normalized' score from the mark matrix record and update the assessment result record.

Level Equivalent

For Assessment codes with type = level equivalent, the normalized score will be the level equivalent field from the matching marks matrix record.   Recall the definition of 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 approach that assesses if a student is progressing faster or slower towards their graduation.   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. As I understand it, this means that each school head can determine personally what it means to say be at a 6th grade level. Normally, how is the national grade level competency determined. Would most school heads go off a national standard determined by the Department of Education?

Percentile Rank

For assessment codes with type = percentile rank, the normalized score will be the percentile rank score from the matching marks matrix record. recall the definition for percentile rank:

Percentile ranking is another method of assessing student performance.  With this method, students are ranked against their peers in a larger population, either state-wide or nationally.  Traditionally, a student's grade in a course can be considered percentile ranked, for example only 10% of students should receive and A in the class.  Percentile Ranked assessments are similar but across a larger population of students. For these types of assessments, PEMS stores a raw score and a percentile rank in the assessment result record.

Competencies

The marks matrix table is not used for competency based assessments since these assessments are either passed or not passed, they are not comparative in nature.