Report User Guide

Version 1.0 – updated 30/08/2019 1 | P a g e

HSC minimum standard Report Name: Outcomes and Focus Area

About this report Information

Data Source: NESA Updated: Fortnightly (1st and 15th of each month)

Designed for

All reports within the HSC app are viewable by Teachers, Principals and school leaders, Directors, Educational Leadership and Executive Directors. The information displayed in each report will be specific to respective user, i.e. school staff will view results for their own school.

Benefits How can I use this report? The Outcomes and Focus Areas report provides details regarding students’ progress towards achieving the HSC minimum standard. At a glance, it displays the number and proportion of students who are exempt, have not yet attempted, or if they have attempted, the outcome of their assessment. It also allows you to view the results in detail at the level of domain, focus area or individual items.

Note: detailed results such as focus area or item description are not available from NESA for Writing.

What should I look for? Comparing the proportions of results from one domain or focus area to another might produce useful information for teachers by highlighting specific areas requiring support.

This can be performed at an individual student level or across groups of students.

For example, when looking at the Focus Area Outcomes, are there more red shaded boxes in one focus area within numeracy compared to the others? This could become an area for targeted instruction or revision.

Taken together, the results across all areas might be able to inform school processes for student readiness in preparing for their attempts. For example, when looking at the proportions in the bar chart, is there a large amount of red compared to green? This may suggest students need further support before they attempt the assessment.

It is strongly recommended that this report be used alongside other data sources such as internal school assessment data.

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Overview

The Outcomes and Focus Area report allows schools to view the current progress of their students towards meeting the HSC minimum standard. It contains multiple sections:

Using the report Select the results you want

The slicers in Step 1 affect the data represented in the charts throughout the report.

The slicers in Step 2 are optional and allow you to select a subset of students. For both steps, the report will automatically update to show results relevant to your selections.

Number of Students by Test and Outcome

The pie chart displays the proportion of students belonging to each status.

This displays the most recent assessment outcomes for a student under each focus area within Numeracy and Reading (not Writing). Students can be grouped here by roll class or custom groups.

This list of item descriptions represents the number of correct and incorrect responses on the most recent assessment attempt. It can be sliced for a domain or focus area within Numeracy or Reading (not Writing).

Focus area outcome for most recent test

Item Descriptors for most recent test

An overview of student progress towards the minimum standard in each domain. The status of each student can be viewed (exempt, not yet attempted, and if attempted, the result outcome).

Student Status

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For either step, if you do not make a selection to refine the selection, the report will continue to display all available results:

Filter your results further

You can filter your view of the data to relate to one assessment domain (e.g. Reading). To cross-highlight a selection, click on the data you want to see. This will be reflected in the table below. The pie chart will not change is it is calculated as a total of all three domains:

You can also select a particular stage of progress (e.g. Not Attempted) by clicking on it. This will be reflected in both the table and pie chart:

For teachers and executives, your school should be pre-selected, otherwise select it here.

Refine your results further by making selections.

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Make multiple selections

You can click on any piece of information and it will be highlighted throughout the report. To make multiple selections at the same time, hold down the control (CTRL) button while clicking on areas.

Hover for information

Hovering the cursor above a section of the chart will display a summary for that section. The example shown Is of the pie chart, but this feature will appear on most other charts as well.

Reset to default

If you wish to remove any selections you have made and return to the initial view, select ‘Reset to default’.

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Major sections of the report

Number of Students by Test and Outcome 1. The bar graph shows the number of students belonging to each status (exempt, no test result, not yet attempted, or the outcome of their attempt). These are displayed as coloured bars in order to represent the proportion of the selected group of students at that school:

2. The table lists all selected students and their current status in each assessment domain. It automatically updates with changes in selection or by highlighting regions in the bar graph above.

3. The Student Status pie graph displays the proportion of students in each of the following categories:

• All Achieved or Exempt – students who have achieved all three minimum standard tests, or are exempt Example: a student is exempt from Numeracy and has achieved in Reading and Writing.

• Some Achieved or Exempt – students who have achieved, or are exempt from, one or two of the minimum standard tests Example: a student is exempt from Numeracy, has achieved Reading but has not yet achieved Writing

• None Achieved – students who have not sat any tests, are new to DoE, or are yet to achieve the minimum standard for all three domains Example: a student who has attempted Numeracy but not yet met the standard, and has also not yet sat the test for both Reading and Writing.

Focus area outcomes for most recent test This heat-map table displays the proportion of questions a student was presented with and answered correctly in each focus area. Red scores are lower and green scores are higher, with the percentage score of questions displayed to that student written inside.

Due to the time limit as well as the adaptive pathway of the assessments, the total number of questions displayed will vary between students. They could have been shown 0, 1 or more in any individual domain.

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This is important to keep in mind when interpreting the meaning and importance of the percentage result. For example, if a student was only shown one question in Algebra they would only have 0% or 100% as their percentage score. If two questions were shown, %0, %50 or %100, and so on.

Blank cells in this chart indicate a student was not shown any questions from that assessment domain:

Note: item level information is not available for Writing. It is also not available for any test completed in 2018. Therefore if a student sat a test in 2018 their results will not show in this table.

You may also Drill Down using the icons in the top right. This allows you to condense by rows (condensing students into student groups) or by columns (condensing focus areas into domains):

Remember:

• By selecting one row or column, other sections will cross-highlight to reflect this change.

• Multiple selections can be made by holding CTRL and selecting.

• Your selection will be applied to both this chart and the following section.

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Item descriptors for most recent test This tornado chart lists individual item descriptors from the assessments along with the number of correct (green) and incorrect (red) responses:

As demonstrated in the above image, the slicer on the left allows you to select a domain or focus area. You can hold CTRL and then click for multiple selections if required.

Need further help? • Other guides are available at the Digital Learning Centre.

• The website also has options for training and data capability building and coaching.

• If you are having difficulty with access to a Scout app or report, contact Support.