NZCER believes schools should make their own judgements about how student performance on PAT:Mathematics relates to the National Standards, until additional studies to align the tests with the standards are completed.

The Ministry of Education has recently published information on the TKI website to assist teachers who wanted to relate achievement on PAT:Mathematics tests to the national mathematics standards at Years 4 to 8. The Ministry clearly indicates on the site that the information provided is currently under review.

The information on the website is the result of an exercise called a script scrutiny, which was held earlier this year. This involved a panel of judges (approximately 12) examining a range of students’ PAT:Mathematics test scripts to decide on score ranges that are indicative of the performance expected at well below, below, at, and above each of the standards. NZCER cooperated in the exercise by assisting the Ministry to locate test scripts and by providing one of the judges.

According to the script scrutiny exercise, students at each Year level had to be performing at a high level on PAT:Mathematics relative to national norms before their script was likely to be judged as demonstrating the skills and competencies expected at or above the appropriate national standard.

Before these results are used to guide schools nationally, NZCER believes they should be tested through other studies. Judging performance standards is demanding and usually takes several iterations.

We are currently planning other studies with the Ministry. In the meantime we believe schools should make their own determinations about appropriate performance levels on PAT:Mathematics.

It is also important to remember that results from a range of sources should be used when making an overall judgement against a standard for an individual student.

New Zealand Council for Educational Research
15 July 2010