Benchmark Assessments

Background

Student Dashboard Metrics

Benchmark assessments (curriculum-referenced tests) are assessments administered periodically throughout the school year, at specified times during a curriculum sequence, to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills relative to an explicit set of longer-term learning goals. The design and choice of benchmark assessments is driven by the purpose, intended users and uses of the instruments. Benchmark assessment can inform policy, instructional planning and decision-making at the classroom, school and district levels.

Primary Metric

  • Benchmark Assessment Mastery: a student's score on a benchmark test and whether or not it meets the campus goal. 

User Interface

Dashboard Example

Figure 1 shows the Student Benchmark Assessment metric as seen on the student dashboard.

Figure 1 TSDS Benchmark Assessment Mastery Metric

Status Definition

The Status Indicator is determined by campus-specific thresholds (campus goals) which are set at the district level. The default threshold for each core subject is 70%.

Table 2 Metric Indicators for Student Benchmark Assessment Mastery Metric

Metric Indicator

Trend Comparisons

Metric Name

Sub-metric Name

Metric Status Indicator
(a)

Compares:
(b)

To:

Benchmark Assessment Mastery

ELA/Reading

Red (Below) = if student assessment score percentage is less than campus goal

Green (Above) = if student assessment score percentage is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current assessment score

Previous assessment score

Mathematics

Red (Below) = if student assessment score percentage is less than campus goal

Green (Above) = if student assessment score percentage is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current assessment score

Previous assessment score

Science

Red (Below) = if student assessment score percentage is less than campus goal

Green (Above) = if student assessment score percentage is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current assessment score

Previous assessment score

Social Studies

Red (Below) = if student assessment score percentage is less than campus goal

Green (Above) = if student assessment score percentage is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current assessment score

Previous assessment score

(a) The Value column displays the percentage of TEKS the student mastered out of the total number tested.

(b) The trends do not display if prior-year benchmark assessment data does not exist.

Trends

Currently the dashboards do not support trends for this district metric.  The UI supports trends, but the ETL packages have not been developed.

Trend Definition

Table 3 lists the trend indicators for the Benchmark Assessment Mastery metric.

The trend does not display if the student has not taken a previous benchmark assessment.

Table 3 Trend Indicators for Benchmark Assessment Mastery

Trend Indicators: Objective is to indicate Benchmark Assessment Mastery

Up green

If the value for the current period is more than 5 percentage points higher than the prior period

Unchanged

If the value for the current period is less than or equal to 5 percentage points higher or less than or equal to 5 percentage points lower than the prior time frame

Down red

If the value for the current period is more than 5 percentage points lower than the prior period

Delta Definition

Table 4 Delta Indicators for TSDS Student Benchmark Assessment

Delta Indicators: Objective is to indicate Benchmark Assessment Mastery

Metric Name

Sub-Metric Name

Student Goal

Delta

Benchmark Assessment Mastery

ELA/Reading

Set Student Goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Mathematics

Set Student Goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal

ScienceSet Student Goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal

Social StudiesSet Student goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal

 

Periodicity 

Table 4 Recommended Load Characteristics for TSDS Benchmark Assessment Mastery Metric

Recommended Load Characteristics

Calendar

Throughout the school year

Frequency of data load

Beginning and end of year

Latency

4 weeks

Interchange schema

Interchange-StudentAssessment.xsd

Tooltip

The standard tooltips for the metric definition, column headers, and help functions display for this metric.

The following tooltips are specific to the Benchmark metric:

  • Green metric status: OK
  • Red metric status: BELOW
  • is ‘No change from the prior period'
  • is ‘Getting worse from the prior period’
  • is 'Getting better from the prior period'

Business Rules

All assessment data is displayed by the specific subject area:

  • Elementary subjects: reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies
  • Middle school subjects: reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies plus high school subjects that are tested at middle level (e.g., Algebra I, English I)
  • High School subjects: Algebra I, Geometry

Data Source Requirements

  • Benchmark assessments are made available to the districts periodically as they are administered throughout the year.
  • Transfer students (late enrollment) who do not have complete transcripts should be indicated.
  • State criteria differs by state and by year. Developers have the option to adjust the thresholds to fit specific organizational criteria.

Calculated Values

Table 5 defines how values for each subject are calculated. The result of the calculation displays in the Value column.

Table 5 Computed Values for Benchmark Assessment Mastery Metric
Metric

Calculation

Benchmark Assessment Mastery

Percentage = (Total number of TEKS mastered for the subject) / (Total number of all TEKS tested for the subject) * 100

Data Anomalies

Anomalies

  • Metrics are sensitive to when and how often the data is loaded. Benchmarks are run after testing windows, grading periods, or other designated interval. 
  • Late enrollees are likely to be missing previous assessment data.
  • Loading of data from multiple administration dates.
  • Dashboards only display current year information at the student level.
  • Campus rollups include historical information from prior years when available. 
  • The most recent exam displays in the classroom assessment detail view of benchmark performance. 
  • Teachers viewing a section with more than one grade level or students that were tested on different TEKS will scroll to the right to see the next set of TEKS for students that took a different exam. 

Best practice is to use footnotes to address these anomalies.

Footnotes

Footnotes are used to provide additional information concerning the metric. Footnotes are sequential for the entire page. Therefore, a metric's footnote may not begin with the number 1.

The following footnotes appear below the metric:

  • Students who have retaken the benchmark
  • Transfer students with an incomplete transcript

Date of Refresh

Best practice is for the date of last data refresh to appear next the metric in the following format:

  • (2/2011 - 5th grade) - for each subject area

Implementation Considerations

Non-Participation

Students who are scheduled to take an assessment, but are absent or exempt are reported in the assessment results files, along with the reason (e.g., absent, exempt for specific reason, etc.). Best practice is for developers to flag or footnote absent and exempt students in some manner.

Tying Test Results to Curriculum Standards

Interest has been expressed in having a next-level drill down from objectives to the student expectations level, which tie to the TEKS curriculum standards. This requires a separate file of data and mapping of assessment items to student expectation. This data is not available until after the last TAKS administration for the year and must be specially obtained from the test provider (Pearson).

Benchmark Assessment Identification

This metric requires districts or local assessment vendors to identify the following components from the enumerated set of data: test type, grade level, subject, classroom/section, campus, date of administration.

 

Drill Downs

Drill Down View

The dashboards include the option to drill down and see more detail that is associated with a metric. Table 6 lists the drill down views that are recommended for this metric.

Table 6 Benchmark Assessment Metric Drill Down View
Historical ChartGraph of historical performance

Description

The Benchmark Assessment detail drill down displays the benchmark examinations taken, associated comprehensive score and current year.

User Interface Notes

Dashboard Example

Figure 2 shows the Historical Chart for Benchmark Assessment Mastery metric

Figure 2 TSDS Historical Benchmark

Drill Down Tooltips

  • The percentage of TEKS mastered is shown as you hover over a specific time frame bar of the graph as shown in Figure 2.

Business Rules

The benchmark assessment score detail displays the most recent score by administration date (within the current school year) grouped by subject area.

Historical Chart:

  • The date of administration and the benchmark assesssment subject are shown as you hover over a bar of the graph.
  • A grey arrow above the percent correct indicates the direction of trend for that subject area
  • Green bar = student did meet the student goal
  • Red bar = student did not meet the student goal

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