Study Help
How to read and understand your child’s AsTTle test results
By M. Debney
26 Jun 2007, 12:18

When your child gets their AsTTle test results, you will notice that they are set out in a particular way. I will try and explain these to you so you can work out where he/she did well and where they need to put more work in.

When the teacher designs the test, they target particular focus areas and levels of achievement. For example, in a maths test, I selected  mostly Probability and Number Operations, with most of the questions to target Level 4 and Level 5. When the test was formatted, there were 7 questions below Level 4, 14 at Level 4 and 10 at Levels 5 and 6.

Boxes

There are four boxes on the sheet in two columns. One column is labelled “Correct” and the other “Incorrect”. Under each column are two boxes – under “Correct” are “Strengths” and “Achieved”, and under “Incorrect” are “To Be Achieved” and “Gaps”.

Strengths = questions students were expected to get wrong, and got right!

Achieved = questions students were expected to get right, and they did.

To Be Achieved = questions students were expected to get wrong, and they did. (These are their next steps for learning.)

Gaps = questions they were expected to get right, and they didn’t. (For some students, this indicates areas that they need to revise.)

The numbers in brackets after the bullet points are the numbers of the questions that were relevant to that particular skill.

If your child has a lot in the “To Be Achieved” section, it means that they found the test too difficult. If they have a lot in the “Achieved” section, it means that they found the test too easy, and if they have an even balance between the boxes, it means the test was about right for them in difficulty.

aRs or aMs Score

This is the double-ended arrow in the middle. It shows where your aRs or aMs score fits against the NZ average (the shaded area). Your score is the halo. aRs stands for average reading score, and aMs stands for average maths score.

The bit at the bottom

There are three lines marked “This Student”, “Level” and “Year 8 Mean”. “This Student” refers to your child, and gives their overall scores for each of the 6 areas: aRs/aMs, Surface Thinking, Deep Thinking, Number Operations, Probability and Statistics. The little “speedometers” above the last three show where your child fits against the NZ average – they are the needle and the NZ average is the shaded portion.

The level relates to the NZ curriculum levels from 1 to 8. You will also notice that there are letters after each level number. B = Basic, A = Achieved and P = Proficient. This tells you whether your child is at the lower end of the level (Basic), in the middle (Proficient) or near the top (Achieved) for that level.

The Year 8 Mean is the NZ average score for each column.  You can relate your child’s score to this and see exactly how well they fit against the rest of NZ.

Surface Thinking is your child’s ability to answer equations, or questions which require answers directly from the text. Deep Thinking is your child’s ability to dive deeper into the text (often using inference) or to explain their reasoning behind their answers.