Accessing+Test+Reports

= Administering and Scoring the One-on-One Measures = = Administering Online Measures = = Where to Begin = = Assessment Frequency  = = Accessing Test Reports =
 * easyCBM Main Page**

Accessing the Reports
The easyCBM system gives teachers several different reports. When taken online, tests are graded immediately by the computer, charted on the students' progress graph, and broken down with item level feedback (e.g., which comprehension questions were hardest for students: Literal, Inferential, or Evaluative).

To access a report, click on the “Reports” tab, and the “Groups” section will be automatically selected. Next, highlight the group and then the test name. Scroll down the page until you see the Summary section listed below. Here you will find the item-by-item analysis of each test question. If you are not able to see or print your student information and graphs, then you may need to make an adjustment to your date range setting. To access this setting, click on the "Reports" tab, then click on the "Individuals" tab. If you scroll down the page, you'll notice a date range setting just below the list of your student names.



The first is the Group Report. When teachers select this report, they have access to detailed information about a specific test their students have taken. To get to the report page, teachers click on the name of a test that their students have taken and then scroll down the page to get to the report that opens the list of tests taken.

The first piece of information teachers see gives them a visual of how heterogeneous the classroom is at the time of the assessment. If students ‘clump together’ in similar skill groupings, it is likely they can effectively meet their instructional needs with whole-class instruction. When teachers have one or a few students who score significantly lower (or higher) than their peers, they may need to investigate opportunities to differentiate instruction to better meet their specific skill-based needs.

Underneath the bar chart, teachers see an Item Analysis list. For all the tests with individual item scores (math, comprehension, etc.), this list provides them with additional information specific to the class. It informs teachers of the specific assessment objective for each item on the test and lists the items in order, from the items students found easiest to those students found most challenging.

Teachers can use this information to help guide their decision-making in terms of what areas to focus on instructionally. For students whose progress teachers are most concerned about, teachers can access individual student progress graphs. These graphs track students’ scores over time and include progress monitoring data for each test teachers have administered. The Intervention Line is easy to add – simply click on the Intervention link and type in the specific intervention teachers are providing to that student. This information is helpful for parent conferences, SST meetings, and IEP reviews.

What if I Don’t See Student Growth?
A lack of growth could have several causes. Each of the different forms of each measure is designed to be of equivalent difficulty, so teachers would expect to see growth from one test administration to the next if students are, indeed, making growth. That said, each measure has an optimal range of ability it is designed to measure. If teachers are administering these measures to enough students, they should be able to see a pretty nice 'normal curve' looking distribution on the most recent measure. If the scores are 'clumped' either toward the left (the tests are too hard for the students) or toward the right (the tests are too easy for the students – there's no 'room' for them to show growth), then teachers should probably consider using a different measure. For instance, for teachers looking at 3rd grade students, if the Word Reading Fluency tests are too easy, move to the Passage Reading Fluency measures. If the Passage Reading Fluency measures are too easy, teachers can move to the Comprehension measures. It's likely that the Comprehension measures are going to be pretty challenging – they're designed to be the most challenging of all the measures at each grade level. So, if teachers are specifically not seeing any growth on those measures, it's important to keep in mind that a jump of 1 or 2 points would actually be pretty significant on that particular test.

It is important to remember that there is a certain amount of unreliability around every score (whether it be Correct Words Per Minute on a Word Reading or Passage Reading test or # of correct answers on a Multiple Choice Comprehension test). Sometimes, students have bad days/good days... sometimes students may be more interested in the passage being read, etc. But, if teachers don't see growth over a longer period of time, this is definitely something to be a bit concerned about and may require some close examination of what instruction/curriculum the students are focusing on. It may be that the students have not actually made any more progress in the skill area a particular test is designed to measure... they wouldn't really be expected to unless their classroom experiences were focusing on those skills. In the case of the Word and Passage Reading Fluency measures, classroom instruction/curriculum that emphasizes increasing students' oral reading fluency skills should result in increased scores on these measures. If, however, instruction has focused on building understanding of literary devices or elements of literature, a growth in fluency would not be expected.

One of the most powerful features of this easyCBM® system is its ability to give teachers an opportunity to track progress – or lack thereof – quickly and make adjustments to the curriculum/instruction accordingly rather than waiting for the state assessment yearly score (which arrives too late to be very helpful). If teachers don't see much progress across three or more times of measurement, they are directed to use that information to help guide discussion about instruction.