Managing Test Reasons

Test reasons are categories used to classify test opportunities for reporting purposes. Test reasons typically indicate the timeframe in which tests were taken. They're a good way to disaggregate data, making it easier to filter and compare your results.

Test reasons should ideally be assigned in the Test Administration (TA) Site at the time of testing. However, you can use the Test Reason Manager in Centralized Reporting to assign a different test reason to a test opportunity after the student has completed the test. Some test reasons cannot be reassigned. Summative test reasons simply represent test windows. You can only reassign test reasons for the present school year.

When test reasons are assigned, you can view, sort, and filter by them. If you want to look at the results of tests within a single test reason, then you can filter the data in your reports to include only those results. If no test reasons are assigned, the data will not be disaggregated. You may find disaggregated data easier to understand.

To associate test opportunities with a test reason:

1.From the Features & Tools menu, select Manage Test Reasons. The Test Reason Manager window opens.

2.To search for the test opportunities you wish to categorize, do either of the following:

In the Session ID field, enter the session ID in which the test opportunities were completed in TDS.
Select the test reason currently associated with the opportunities you want to edit. Then select a range of dates during which the test session was administered. The date range cannot exceed seven days.

3.Click Search. A list of retrieved test sessions appears.

a.Optional: Click next to a session to expand the list of tests administered in that session.

b.Optional: Click next to a test name to expand the list of students who completed that test in that session.

4.To select test opportunities to modify, do one of the following:

To select all the test opportunities completed in a particular test session, mark the checkbox for that session.
To select all the test opportunities completed for a particular test in a particular session, mark the checkbox for that test name.
To select individual test opportunities, mark the checkbox for each student name.

5.Click Assign Test Reasons below the list of retrieved sessions. The Confirm Test Reason and Assign Opportunities window appears.

6.To assign the selected opportunities to an existing test reason, select a reason from the Please Select a Test Reason drop-down list.

7.Click Confirm.

To learn how to filter various reports by test reason, refer to Filtering Tables.

Alert: Managing ICA Test Reasons

Interim Comprehensive Assessments (ICA) consist of two test components that are combined into a single assessment for Centralized Reporting. If the components of an ICA were administered in separate test sessions with different test reasons, the combined assessment uses the test reason assigned to the component that was completed last.

To change the test reason for an ICA, you must change the test reason assigned to the component that was completed last. If you do not know which component was completed last, you should change the test reason for both test components.