This is an information sheet for parents and the community about Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs).

Background to the PATs

New Zealand teachers use a variety of tests to determine what level students are at, what progress they are making, and where they may need extra help. Progressive Achievement Tests, commonly known as PATs, are one of the main sets of tests schools use.

PATs are multiple-choice tests designed to help teachers determine achievement levels of students in Mathematics, Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary, and Listening Comprehension. The test results help teachers decide what kinds of teaching materials are needed and which methods or programmes are most suitable for their students. PATs are also important because they identify the progress a student is making from year to year.

All PATs are available as online tests. Schools can also buy printed PATs from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), an independent research organisation which first developed the tests more than 30 years ago.

PAT Pānui | PAT Reading Comprehension assesses how well Year 4 to 10 students understand the text they are reading. Each test is organised around several extended pieces of writing which include stories, poems, reports and explanations.

PAT: Reading Vocabulary assesses Year 4 to 10 students’ ability to understand the words they read. Each question is based around a key word that is embedded in a short sentence. Students are asked to choose a synonym that best represents the meaning of this word from a list of five possible alternatives.

PAT: Listening Comprehension measures Year 3 to 10 students' ability to understand spoken material. Students listen to a passage and then answer questions. It helps teachers detect children with poor listening skills and is also useful in identifying those children whose listening comprehension performance is significantly different from their ability to comprehend written material.

PAT Pāngarau | PAT Mathematics covers number knowledge, number strategies, algebra, geometry and measurement, and statistics. PAT Pāngarau is for Years 3 to 10, with some tests appropriate for ākonga in Year 11.

Frequently Asked Questions

About PATs

What are PATs?   

PATs are multiple-choice tests designed to help teachers determine achievement levels of students in Mathematics, Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary, and Listening Comprehension. The test results help teachers decide what kinds of teaching materials are needed and which methods or programmes are most suitable for their students. PATs identify the progress a student is making from year to year.

When were PATs first developed?  

PATs were first developed in the 1960s and revised in the early 1990s. PATs have all been completely refreshed recently to better represent the needs and interest of diverse learners. This includes the new PAT Pāngarau and PAT Pānui tests. 

What format are the tests and how long do they take to sit?

All the tests are multiple-choice format. Students either sit the test online using a computer or tablet, or are given a printed test booklet and answer sheet. Test times range from 20 to 45 minutes according to the particular test.

Do PATs have to be done online?  

All PATs are available as online tests and as paper tests. Online tests are administered, marked and reported on through our NZCER Assist platform. Paper tests can be marked by schools themselves, or uploaded to NZCER Assist for marking.  

Please note that our refreshed tests, PAT Pānui and PAT Pāngarau, must be marked through NZCER Assist even if pen-and-paper tests are used.  

What year levels do PATs cover?  

Most PATs are suitable for years 3-10. In some cases, they may be useful for students in Year 11. 

What other tests do schools use?

Teachers use other diagnostic tests to measure achievement and progress such as STAR, and AsTTle. STAR is a reading test, and AsTTle stands for Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning. It is a numeracy and literacy assessment tool provided to schools by the Ministry of Education. All use different reporting mechanisms.

Are PATs available in te reo Māori?  

Currently PATs are not available in te reo Māori. NZCER hopes to continue its refresh of all PATs, with assessments in te reo Māori one of our priorities.  

Can we see the PAT questions?  

Schools can view some example questions from our PAT Pāngarau tests here. As the question bank is used year on year (with regular tweaks and updates), sharing all questions publicly can jeopardise the integrity of the tests and the data used to inform student progress. We encourage that sample questions are not used for practice tests.  

Can my child ‘fail’ the PATs?

The PATs can pinpoint areas where your child is doing well or poorly. The PAT is not a definitive diagnostic test but just one test of many that will build a picture of your child for the teacher.

Is there funding for PATs? What’s the cost?  

At the current moment, there has been no indication of government funding for either schools or NZCER to support or subsidise the use of twice-yearly assessments.

As an independent organisation, NZCER has developed and administered PATs on its own for around 40 years, and does charge for use of the assessments to support continued investment in new and refreshed products, as well as the ongoing development of our NZCER Assist platform and challenges of rising costs.  

Our last price increase was 10 cents per student sitting an online assessment, introduced in August 2024 in line with our pricing review at the beginning of each financial year (the previous increase was in 2022). There has been no change to subscriptions for assessments or our suite of survey products.

Please see the table below for a summary of the most recent pricing changes. 

Curriculum and assessment changes for schools

Do I have to use PATs from 2025? 

Currently, schools are encouraged to test twice a year in reading, writing, maths, tuhituhi, pānui and pāngarau. PATs are one of the options schools can use for this, alongside e-asTTle and Te Waharoa Ararau. 

How are these tests associated with the curriculum?

The content of PATs has been chosen to reflect the content of the curriculum. The scale for each PAT can be matched to the curriculum levels, so teachers and parents can see what curriculum level students are working at.

PATs were broadly aligned to the 2007 curriculum progressions. With the new curriculum being updated and rolled out currently, over time you will also see new online reports added to the NZCER Assist platform that will provide information about what the scores achieved by your students mean against the new curriculum phases.

Over time, NZCER will also add new content to the bank of items that drives the adaptive tests to ensure alignment is optimised. 

When should students sit PATs when testing twice a year? 

Typically, schools administer PATs at the beginning of Term 1 and as late in Term 4 as scheduling allows. However, it is important to note that PATs cannot provide precise measures of progress within a single school year. Instead, they help build trend information over a student’s time at school, providing insights into their overall learning progress.

Should schools use static or adaptive tests for twice-yearly assessment?

Adaptive tests are useful in that the questions change as a student answers them, adapting to their responses and providing a scale score that reflects their progress and strengths more accurately than a static test.

Static tests provide useful point-in-time information, but repetition of the same static test can introduce variables such as practice effects, which may not illustrate a student’s true progress.  

Where possible, NZCER encourages the use of adaptive testing. If you are using static tests twice yearly, NZCER recommends using these as a guide (alongside multiple other sources of information) rather than a concrete indicator of progress.  

Please note that currently only PAT Pāngarau and PAT Reading Vocabulary are available as an adaptive test.  

I’m a homeschooling parent – what do I do about these new testing requirements?

You can register as a homeschool and use PATs, but will require your homeschool certificate to get set up and access the PATs at a minimal cost. You can also request support from our Education Advisors or Assessment Services team.  

Are PATs the same as Curriculum Insights tests?  

No – these are two different assessments. PATs are owned and administered by NZCER, while Curriculum Insights assessments are part of an independent study.

NZCER is part of this study however, alongside the Educational Assessment Research Unit, and together we carry out the Curriculum Insights study on contract to the Ministry of Education.  

Results of the Curriculum Insights study are anonymous and published following data collection (usually once each year) to help inform policy and improvements, while PAT assessments are for the schools’ own use. 

Data, progress and reporting 

How do PATs measure progress?  

PATs provide a scale score for each student assessment: this locates the student’s achievement on a scale. All PAT assessments in the same learning area use the same scale. In this way, you can see progress based on scale scores over time. To measure a single student’s progress, at least two years of PAT assessment data is recommended. To measure the average progress of a group of students, shorter timeframes are fine.

Scale scores from two tests for the same student in the same year may seem to show progress, but this progress could be within the margin of measurement error. This does not mean progress has not occurred – simply that it has not been reliably detected by the PAT assessment.  

Average (mean) group scores can also be compared to norms to track progress. Norms are based on national reference information, and provide a guide as to how the overall student population is achieving on PATs.  

You can find more information in the Monitoring Progress in Learning guide here.  

What are the benchmarks for progress in PATs?  

NZCER does not have benchmarks as such for PATs. We produce achievement norms for given year levels, which come from repeated samples of assessment records of students who have taken the PATs. These samples are stratified according to equity index levels, to better represent the student population.  

This process lets us produce means and standard deviations for the national distribution of each school equity index group, and then an overall mean and standard deviation for student achievement at each year level.  

Schools can compare their PAT data to this national reference information and see how their students – at a group level – are achieving compared with national averages. We review these approximately every five years.  

How can I find out my child’s PAT test scores and do I need to?

Most schools will report regularly to you on your child’s progress, through school reports and parent/teacher meetings. You can ask about their current score range, and how they have progressed up the scale. PAT results can be a good starting point to help you understand how your child is doing. A single test however should always be considered alongside other assessment information.

Can I see how my child’s test scores compared to other children of their age?

Stanines allow your child’s achievement to be compared with the performance of New Zealand students at a particular year level. Scores on the PAT scale (see section on scales) at each level are divided into nine stanines, one being the lowest performance and nine being the highest. The average stanine is around five. So, the stanine gives you an idea of your child’s achievement level in the context of their year group nationally.

Can PATs be a sole indicator of progress?  

No. NZCER’s position is that PAT information should always be used alongside teacher observations, whānau input, ākonga feedback and appropriate professional learning and development.  

How do I use PAT reporting information formatively?  

At a group / classroom level, you can use PAT reporting to identify particular aspects of a test where ākonga may need support. For an individual, PAT information should be treated as indicative rather than definitive.  

Will data follow students from school to school?  

PAT data does not follow students from school to school. This is because schools are the owners of their own PAT data.  

Why is there a margin of error on PAT results?

All measurements – whether from a physical measurement (like a 30 cm ruler), or a psychometric measurement (like a PAT assessment) – have a margin of (measurement) error. This simply reflects the measurement’s precision. We couldn’t hope to know everything about a student’s achievement by asking them 40 multi-choice questions, and the margin of error reminds us of this.

If 100 students were to sit two PAT assessments of comparable difficulty, we would expect that for approximately 67 of those students their second scale score would be within the margin of error of their first scale score. 

How is PAT data used?  

PAT data is for schools to assess student progress, and is owned by the schools. NZCER may use this data in aggregated and anonymised reporting, but will never give it to a third party without your express written permission.  

Equity and refreshed PATs

Is assessment culturally neutral?  

Assessment, just like learning, is culturally located not culturally neutral. All learners bring their cultural perspectives, languages, traditions, knowledge, backgrounds, and experiences to learning and assessment.  

Why have NZCER used kupu Māori and words from Pacific languages in some assessment items?  

Using kupu Māori and words from Pacific languages acknowledges Māori and Pacific learners by including aspects of their cultures and identities in the language and practices of standardised assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular, it upholds the right of ākonga Māori to see and use te reo Māori throughout their education, including in the language of assessments.  

Does using kupu Māori and words from Pacific languages affect what PAT Pāngarau | PAT Mathematics measures?  

NZCER has worked hard to ensure that the use of kupu Māori and words from Pacific languages in some PAT Pāngarau items enhances how well the assessment measures proficiency in mathematics. This has included:  

• they were planned and constructed to align with the New Zealand curriculum  
• a range of experts and stakeholders were involved in the development process, and the assessments underwent multiple stages of trialling and review  
• Statistical analysis was used to support the development of assessment items  
• they exhibited strong psychometric links to the existing PAT: Mathematics tests 

Where can I find out more about culture and assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand?  

Kerr, B. & Averill, R. (2021). Contextualising assessment within Aotearoa New Zealand: drawing from mātauranga Māori. AlterNative,17(2), 236–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801211016450

Kerr, B. & Averill, R. (2023). Arotakehia te rerenga – Assessment as a powerful instrument of education: Knowing how well we are doing. In P. Te Maro & R. Averill (Eds.) Ki te hoe! Education for Aotearoa (pp. 200-222). NZCER.  

Mahuika, R., Berryman, M. & Bishop, R. (2011). Issues of culture and assessment in New Zealand education pertaining to Māori students. Assessment Matters, 3, 183-198. https://doi.org/10.18296/am.0093

May, S. (2005). Assessment: what are the cultural issues in relation to Pasifika, Asian, ESOL, immigrant and refugee learners? University of Waikato. 

How PATs are marked

Scales

Students receive a raw test score (e.g. 22 out of 40), which is converted onto a scale. There are four separate PAT scales: the PAT Pāngarau scale, the PAT Pānui scale, the PAT: Reading Vocabulary scale and the PAT: Listening Comprehension scale.

The process used to convert raw scores to scale scores takes into account the difficulty of the questions in the tests. Each scale covers all the year levels each test is aimed at, so an individual student’s progress can be tracked over time. As students learn more and move through the year levels, they should move up the scale. For example, most students start off with a reading vocabulary score of around 28 units on the scale. By year 10, most will score around 66 units.

Note, units are not percentage points. Each set of tests has its own scale, e.g., the PAT: Mathematics scale, and the units are particular to that scale. In Pat:Mathematics, units are called patm, in PAT:Reading Comprehension they are patc, in PAT:Reading Vocabulary they are patv, and in PAT:Listening Comprehension they are patl.

Measurement error

Scale scores are reported within a range, such as 35 plus or minus 3. This is to indicate the range within which we would expect your child to score if they repeated the test. No single test can be absolutely precise. The plus or minus range is similar to the margin of error found in political polls.

Score comparison

Once a raw score has been converted to a scale score, it is possible to compare a student’s achievement with the achievement of nationally representative groups of students at different year levels (known as national reference groups). Because PATs have been tested nationally in a statistically rigorous way on all year groups, we know the average score and the likely range of scores for students in maths, reading comprehension, reading vocabulary and listening comprehension for each year level. A scale score of 60, for instance, represents very high achievement for a Year 4 student, but represents below average achievement for a student in Year 10. These national norms come from testing done at the beginning of the school year. So if your child sits PATs towards the end of the year, it is best to compare their achievement against the national reference group for the next year level.

Stanines

Comparisons can also be done using what are known as stanines. Scale scores at each year level nationally are divided into nine levels of achievement, called stanines, with the lowest performance level being stanine one and the highest stanine nine. For example, you may be told that when compared with all Year 4 students nationally, your child is in stanine 7. Since the average stanine is stanine five, this indicates an above average performance.

Jargon Explained

PAT is the acronym for Progressive Achievement Test

Curriculum is the set of courses and their content offered at school or university. In New Zealand, there is a national curriculum – it is not prescriptive but offers guidelines for schools to follow and develop their own curriculum.

Stanines are used to compare an individual student’s achievement with the results obtained by a national reference sample representing a certain year level.

Literacy is the ability to use language to read, write, speak and listen. 

Numeracy is the ability to understand mathematics, numbers and measurement. 

National reference group is a sample group of thousands of students nationally. Its data has provided the PAT averages, score ranges and stanines.