• Accountability system:
    Expectations that are established to ensure that schools and school districts are meeting the student achievement expectations of the state and the nation. Part of the system allows for local planning to increase student achievement, with decisions being driven by student achievement data.

  • Achievement level:

    Various standardized tests translate scores into achievement levels.

    Examples:

    • NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) results can be translated into levels of achievement, whether Basic, Proficient, or Advanced.
    • LEAP 21 (Louisiana Educational Assessment Program) results are translated as Unsatisfactory, Approaching Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced.
    • FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) results are reported as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 numbered levels, where 1 reflects little success with challenging content while 5 is outstanding success with challenging content.


  • Achievement gap:
    The achievement gap is an identified gap in achievement among subgroups of students, oftentimes based on certain demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). It is desirable that all students achieve, and the gap is a means of identifying groups requiring intervention. This measure helps schools to set achievement goals, objectives, and strategies for improvement.

  • Aggregated:
    Educators utilize aggregated data when they statistically combine common data to provide a general overall result. For example, if all students in various classrooms take the same assessment, the results from each classroom may be aggregated or combined to provide an overall snapshot of the performance of all students in the school or district.

  • Criterion-referenced test:
    A criterion-referenced test is standardized, and is administered to measure student achievement against specific standards over specified content. Educators or policy makers may choose to use a CRT when they wish to see how well students have learned the knowledge and skills that they are expected to have mastered.

  • Cut score:
    The cut score is the score that is determined to be a passing score for a particular test. If a district has established a scale score for its tests of 100-500, the cut score for any test is changed to the scale score to enable all tests to have an identical range. For example, a reading test might have a cut score of 30 correct out of 60 questions for a passing score. Converted to the scale score, it is scale scored at 300 (the passing score on the scale score). Likewise, if the history test has a cut score of 70 out of 100, a student achieving 70 would also receive a scaled score of 300.

  • Database:
    A database is a collection of data organized especially for rapid search and retrieval.

  • Data warehouse :
    A database warehouse is a database where various parts of the data collection must be archived for future longitudinal studies.It is most often accompanied by data mining capabilities to provide data in display for analysis and comparison over time.

  • Disaggregated:
    Data that is illustrated by subgroups to determine how the groups performed on the test is known as disaggregated data. These subgroups may be various populations, e.g. minority students (racial/ethnic groups) or a group of students who are new to the school.

  • Disaggregation:
    Looking at data by subgroups to determine how the groups performed on the test is known as disaggregating the data. These subgroups may be various populations, e.g. minority students (racial/ethnic groups) or a group of students who are new to the school. The purpose disaggregation is to discover if there is learning for all students and to find areas for focus or intervention.

  • District report card:
    Based on the ongoing measures of achievement levels of students within a school district, a report is calculated. Some states use these report cards for funding purposes.

  • Grade equivalent:
    A grade equivalent score reported for a student on an achievement test is a standard score which can then be compared to the typical score for students at the grade level. This score is widely misinterpreted and criterion is advised in using it.

  • Learning gains:
    In the state of Florida, as in some other states, achievement levels are recorded. When a student makes a learning gain, he or she either maintains the level of the previous year’s assessment, or increases by one or more levels. These learning gains are counted to determine the state funding levels for the school.

  • Mean score:
    A mean score is the average of the scores of the students who took the test. To compute the mean, one must find the sum by adding all the scores and then divide by the total number of scores. Means could be calculated for various score types (e.g., mean scale score, mean raw score, mean percentage correct or mean normal curve equivalent.

  • Median score:
    A median score is calculated by listing scores in ascending or descending order and finding the middle or median of the list. If the number of scores is an odd number, then the median score is the score in the middle of the list. If the number of scores is an even number, then the median score is the average of the two middle scores on the list.

  • Mode score:
    A mode score exists if one particular score occurs more frequently than the others in a list of scores. There can be more than one mode score if several numbers repeat at the same frequency.

  • Norm group:
    A norm group is a sample of students taken from across the country, representative of the national demographic population. In a norm-referenced test, this group takes the test originally and their results are used as a basis for comparison in subsequent test administrations.

  • Normal curve equivalent:
    Normal curve equivalents (NCE) are equal interval scores, ranging from 1-99, used to measure where a student falls along the normal curve or to compare their results across two (or more) years of marks. NCE scores can be averaged, which is important in studying overall school performance and student learning gains.

  • Norm-referenced test
    A norm-referenced test is a standardized test intended to rank, sort, and select. This testing was designed to highlight achievement differences between test takers to produce a dependable rank order of students across a continuum of achievement from high achievers to low achievers (Stiggins, 1994) These test results can be visually represented with a bell-shaped curve, spreading student performance out in a bell-shaped distribution.

  • Percentage correct:
    A percentage score indicates what percentage of the questions the student got correct.

  • Percentile:
    A percentile is useful to know how a student performed in comparison to other students. National Percentile Rank (NPR) represents the rank of an individual student as compared to those students in the norm group. For example if a student’s NPR is 69, this indicates that this student scored as well or better than 69 % of the students who took the test. Conversely, it indicates that 31% of the students scored as well or better than this student. Percentiles cannot be averaged, as they are rankings.

  • Proficiency, performance, or achievement level:
    Various standardized tests translate scores into proficiency, performance, or achievement levels. Each of these assessments establishes and uses scale scores in a standard setting process to derive the proficiency, performance, or achievement levels. The scores assist states in producing state, district, and school report cards or accountably reports.

    Examples:

    • National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results can be translated into levels of achievement whether Basic, Proficient, or Advanced.
    • Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP 21) results are translated as Unsatisfactory, Approaching Basic, Basic, Proficient, or Advanced.
    • Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results are reported as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 numbered levels, where 1 reflects little success with challenging content while 5 is outstanding success with challenging content.


  • Raw score:
    A raw score is the number of test items that a student answers correctly. A raw score has no meaning on its own. It needs to be converted to another score type in order to be interpreted.

  • Scale score:
    A scale score may be reported on both NRTs and CRTs. Scale scores are mathematical conversions from raw scores to a new, arbitrarily chosen scale to represent student achievement. They have no inherent or readily apparent meaning. The better a student performs on a test, the higher the scale score reported. Each test publisher can determine its own scale range to represent achievement. Practitioners must know the scale range of the test in order to interpret a student’s achievement. In the state of Florida, standards were set resulting in FCAT achievement levels as a way of integrating the results of the grade level scale scores.

  • School report card:
    Based on the ongoing measures of achievement levels of students within a school, a report is calculated. Some states use these report cards for funding purposes.

  • Standard error of measurement:
    Standard error of measurement (SEM) is a statistical phenomenon that all test and quiz scores are subject to. It is the amount of error in individual test scores if a student were to take the same test repeatedly, with no change in his or her level of knowledge and preparation. The difference between a student’s actual score and his or her highest or lowest hypothetical score is known as the SEM.

  • Standardized test:
    A standardized test uses uniform content and procedures for administration and scoring in order to assure that the results from different test takers are comparable.

  • Stanine:
    A stanine score is a standard score that ranges between 1 and 9 with an average of 5, often used as a broad representation of achievement. Most students are expected to receive a stanine score of 4, 5, or 6.

  • State report card:
    Based on the ongoing measures of achievement levels of students within a state, a report is calculated.

  • Title I grants:
    Title I grants are provided to fund appropriate services to the following Title I students:
    • Low achieving students who attend schools with students in the highest poverty level.
    • Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students.
    • Native American students.
    • Migrant students.
    • Neglected, delinquent, or at-risk children and youth.
    • Students with disabilities.
    • Young children who need reading assistance.
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