This article will break down the adaptive test results page for an individual test, and explain a bit more about what the results you're seeing mean.
The first information you’re provided with about how you did on an adaptive test is the Summative Results. This is a general overview of how you did on this particular adaptive test.
Summary: This will be an overall result based on how you met certain key indicators below for Percentile Ranking, Average Score, and Highest Difficulty. The 4 possible Summary results are: Fail, Not Good, Good, and Exceptional.
Percentile: This number shows in what percentile your rank. This compares how you did on this particular test with all other students.
Questions Asked: The total number of questions you were asked on this test
Correct Answers: The total number of questions you were asked on this test that you answered correctly
% Correct: Total Percentage of correct answers out of questions asked.
Below the Summative Results section is Charts. The charts not only provide you with an Overall Indication for the module(s) you tested on, but also the Percentile Ranking, Average Score, and Highest Difficulty for those module(s)
OVERALL INDICATION
The Ranks of Fail, Not Good, Good, and Exceptional, are based on surpassing the benchmark on 3 criteria: Percentile Ranking, Average Score, and Highest Difficulty.
A ranking of Fail means you were unable to surpass any of the benchmarks
A ranking of Not Good means you were able to surpass one of the benchmarks
A ranking of Good means you were able to surpass two of the benchmarks
A ranking of Exceptional means you were able to surpass all three of the benchmarks
PERCENTILE RANKING
This percentage represents where you are positioned within the schools in our system. For example, an overall percentile of 67 in a module means you are in the top third of the system’s test takers testing at that provider level in the module selected.
For the benchmark, you would want to aim for testing above the 51 st percentile.
AVERAGE SCORE
This is the percentage of questions you answered correctly in a given module.
For the benchmark, you would want to be getting more than 65% of questions correct in a module
HIGHEST DIFFICULTY
This describes the most difficult question you were exposed to during testing for a given module, even if it wasn’t answered correctly. Since in an adaptive test, the more questions you answer correctly the harder the questions are that you are presented with, even being asked a question at a high difficulty level is an accomplishment. A question with a difficulty of 0.0 would be one that no one ever misses and a difficulty of 0.96 would be an item that hardly anyone ever gets correct. For a benchmark, you will want to be asked a question with a difficulty above .60
The Curriculum Breakdown can be very helpful when trying to isolate specific areas that may require more study. Expanding a module is done by selecting the triangle button immediately to the left of that module, and will show you the topics associated with the module that you answered questions on. If testing in the Module, Topic, Objective (MTO) curriculum, you can expand the topics down even further into individual objectives.
In this example, I've taken it in the 'module-topic-objective' curriculum as it breaks down the different sections very specifically. I've opened up 'preparatory' to show 1-1 through 1-5. I've also opened up 1-1 to show 1-1-2 and 1-1-6. From this I can see that I may want to study more on the Intro 1-1 section; Especially 1-1-4 and 1-1-6.
Of course, after determining the areas that may require more study, I can study, then take another adaptive test on the same module(s) to see if I’ve improved. This can be a vital way to figure out your strengths and weaknesses when preparing for the National Registry, as well as throughout your time in class.