Data Analysis
At intervals during the implementation of your plan you will need to identify the progress you are
making towards achieving your targets.
It's important to have a deliberate and timely process for assessment, data collection and analysis.
The analysis is important. Assessment information that is not used to inform decision making at the
classroom level and/or school-wide level, is not worth collecting.
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What process do you use to look at school-wide outcome data?
What is your process to ensure that the data you use is reliable: What quality
control ensures your conclusions are justified by the data you have?
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Data analysis does not have to be a complicated statistical process.
Suppose you are aiming to improve Māori students' literacy results. asTTle statistics can show you how well
year 4 Māori students achieve nationally. Using the same tool you can separate the results for your Māori
students. Are your Māori students achieving above or below the average for your school? For comparable schools?
Are their results above or below the national average?
Perhaps your secondary school geography department aims to improve student performance in the "natural hazards"
topic. Do department wide assessments consistently show one teacher's class performs better than the others?
Is it possible that additional professional development is required by some staff to meet the improvement targets?
A similar analysis could be undertaken if, for example, the target was improvement
of Pasifika student achievement. Are your Pasifika students achieving at a comparable
level to your whole school? Are they achieving at the national average?
Having individual student results stored in a simple spreadsheet can enable
school management to graph distributions of achievement by classes, level, gender,
ethnicity and so on. Comparisons can be made on the basis of school-wide results
or on a classroom-by-classroom basis. For example, how does room 4's year 5 information
compare with the year 5s as whole? Or with the national statistics?
Rather than complex statistical tests, it's usually simple counts, averages, spreads, and trends that a
school's managers need to be interested in.
EXAMPLE 1
It's clear from this graph that the Māori students in this year group are not doing as well as the non-Māori
students. This provides an imperative to look carefully at the particular issues impeding
these students' achievement.
EXAMPLE 2
A quick look at these graphs suggests that the children in room 4 have made more progress than those in room 5.
This observation might cause a principal to dig a little deeper and investigate whether there are strategies
that room 5's teacher could learn from professional development work with the other teacher.
Further Resources
The assessment community on TKI provides information and links to tools for the gathering and analysis of achievement data.
Case Studies
Tauranga Girls' College have used assessment
data in a number of ways to develop and evaluate programmes in their target areas.
For the last five years Hibiscus Coast Intermediate has collected and analysed achievement data in every curriculum area. The model drives them to continuously raise the bar.
Back to: Introduction | Next Section: Evaluation
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