STAR (2012)

STAR reading test result scores for years 3-9 may be entered for up to 4 tests per year (one per term), many schools undertaking 2 tests (at the beginning and end of) each year. STAR 2012 only is supported from 2015.

STAR (2012)

English

1. Providing your school's Assessment Co-ordinator (or person with this user responsibility assigned) has completed set up for entering STAR results, data can be entered for an individual, or group of the students in your class.

2. If required where students are not sitting the same test, the Assessment Co-ordinator can click 'Assign Tests' to enable recording of the test form used for each student in your class.

3. Teachers can then enter results for their class.

4. The totals are calculated automatically, presenting a Stanine result.

5. Save your group or individual student's results.

6. If a score has been entered into a student's records by mistake, remove the numbers by using the delete or backspace key and save.

7. STAR results already saved can be edited by expanding beside your student’s name on the STAR results page.

   1. Having selected a set of results, the date defaults to the ‘Date Sat’ field at the top of the page - for those students who sat the test on the date selected. 

   2. Where a student sat a STAR assessment within the same test period, the results are displayed, but greyed out. These are available for editing once the date selection has been made for that set of results. 

8. Results entered by a student's previous school are displayed as Read only.

Assessment Analysis

Results are available for analysis for the Students, Class, Year Level and School views.

Student view

The full results for the student selected are displayed in a table.

Class, Year Level and School views

Several options for display are available as follows:

1. A Bar Chart displaying the percentage of students for each stanine for the selected group

2. The Full Results for each student in the selected group

3. A sortable table displaying the Full Results for the students in the group selected

4. Stanine tables for the Class and Year levels

These can be viewed, exported or printed. Note the results are colour coded based on their variance to the normal distribution, allowing at a quick glance those results (red) that are lower and therefore may need more attention.

Entering STAR Reading Test results

Setting up

STAR tests have been set by your school's Assessment Co-ordinator for appropriate years (3 - 9) for your students via My Class Assessment (click 'Configure Assessments') on the 'English' tab > Reading.

Recording results

1. From the results page enter STAR results for individual students in your class.  Any errors during recording of scores can be fixed by using delete or the backspace key before saving the records. 

2. The year level shown is the class year level - this dictates the number of STAR Test periods.  For example

3. • For Year 3, there are 4 Test Periods  (Feb-April, May-July, Aug-Oct and Nov-Dec)

   • For Year 4, there are 3 Test Periods  (Feb-May, June-Aug and Sept-Nov).

4. The assessment Form A or B used must be specified. STAR Test Period is automatically shown using the ‘Date Sat’ field information. The test date defaults to today’s date, but can be altered. The STAR Raw Score and Stanine Value details are derived from the total score entered or calculated using the applicable Stanine table. 

5. Please refer to the NZCER Teachers' Manual for more information. It is not possible to enter a result with a Test date which falls outside the STAR Test Period for that student.

6. Results entered on a previous date can be edited as long as they were entered by your school. Click the chevron by the student's name and select the date required to expand the information. This link will place the date selected into the 'Date Sat' field, and all the results input on that date will be displayed, and are editable.

7. Results entered by a previous school for any student will be read-only.

When students sit a STAR test in Term 4 their scale scores should be compared with the reference sample for the next year level up. This is because the reference data refer to students who did the test in Term 1. By the end of the year, students are more like students who are just starting the next year level up than students who are just starting their own year level. So, if a Year 3 student is tested in Term 4, then stanines for the Year 4 reference group should be used. It is important to record that they are Year 4 stanines.

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