Assessment Analysis Assignment

Introduction:

Below is a simple lesson format that outlines the standards, objectives, the activities in an assessment
that was presented to 20 students. Included in this assignment are the results of the student
performance on a pre-and posttest. You are to answer the questions below as they relate to the
students’ performance on the pre and post test. In addition, you are expected to analyze the data using
your observation skills as a preservice teacher. Note that there are some unique characteristics of the
data that was collected concerning the student performance on both the pre-and post-tests. Please
review and identify some anomalies within the data. Finally, you are required to offer some suggestions
on how this lesson as it was presented could be improved along with suggestions on how to assess the
students’ knowledge.
 Simple Lesson Format: (used by the teacher)
Standard:
D. 1.a 6. Students will understand information about the Western states and their capitals.

Objectives:
1. The student can identify the outlines of 13 western states when given an unlabeled worksheet of the
13 western states within 80% accuracy.

2. The student will identify the state capitals of 13 western states when given a blank outline of the
western states within 80% accuracy.

Activity:
The students will observe a PowerPoint presentation about the states and their roles. The students are
expected to take notes during the presentation. No supplemental materials are offered other than a
blank piece of paper and pencil.

Assessment:
Directions: put a number on each state and then identify the state name and its capital in the chart. You
have five minutes to complete this task.

Number State Capital

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Diagram to Support the Assessment
 Western States Pre and Post Assessment Analysis
(26 Possible Points)

Name Pre- Post- Pre- Post- Comments

assessment assessment assessment assessment
score on score on state score on score on
state outlines state state
outlines capitals capitals
1. Jack Able 3 7 1 5
2. Benny Bude 0 5 0 5
3. Cathy Case 10 12 4 4
4. Debbie St. John 5 8 2 6
5. Evenua Sye 0 5 2 6
6. Foster Brooks 12 13 6 12
7. Gredi Guy 11 12 Missed lesson
8. Helen Troy 4 8 4 6
9. Jack Strong 6 1 2 3
10.Kelly Armstrong 3 9 0 5
11.Larry Ultra 2 8 1 7
12.Monica Goom 8 1 7 Missed
assessment
13.Nicky Johnson 2 8 1 7
14.Opera James 4 10 0 6
15.Paul Uber 2 4 2 3
16.Roberta Johnson 12 Sick
17.Samua Sales 3 9 2 5
18.Victor Ide 5 11 0 4
19.Benny Jets 0 8 2 5
20.Fina Last 6 11 0 5

Blank cell indicates the assessment was not taken. A zero means that the student scored a zero on the
assessment. Make sure to calculate the mean, mode and median only on the students that completed
the assessments. If a student was missing, this should not be calculated when determining the mean,
mode, and median.

Site to calculate descriptive statistics: https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/statistics/mean-

median-mode.php
 Assessment Analysis Questions:

1. What was the pre-assessment mean, mode and median for the students that took the pre-
assessments for both the Western States outline and capitals?

Mean Median Mode

Pre-Assessment 3.9 3 3, 0, 2
State Outlines
Pre-Assessment 1.7 1.5 2
State Capitals

2. What was the post-assessment mean, mode, and median for the students that took the post
assessments for both the Western States outline and capitals??

Mean Median Mode

Post-Assessment 8.2 8 8
State Outlines
Post-Assessment 6.25 5.5 5
State Capitals

3. What students scored in the top 3 on the pre-assessments?

Foster Brooks- 18Cathy Case- 14 Helen Troy- 8 Jack Strong- 8
4. What students scored in the bottom 3 on the pre- assessment?
Benny Jets- 2 Evenua Sye- 2 Benny Bude- 0
5. What students scored as the top 3 on the post-assessments?
Foster Brooks- 20Cathy Case- 16 Opera James- 16 Fina Last- 16
6. What students scored in the bottom 3 on the post-assessment?
Evenua Sye- 11 Paul Uber- 7 Jack Strong- 4
7. Are the students the same in both cases? (pre and post assessments?)
There are three students who are the same in both cases. Cathy Case and Foster Brooks
scored in the top 3 in both the pre and the post-test, Brooks at 18 and 20, and Case at 14 and
16. Evenua Sye scored in the bottom 3 in both the pre and post-test with a 2 and an 1.
8. Which students had the largest gain scores (greatest improvement) from the pretest to
posttest for both assessments?
 There were 3 students who had an increase from the pre to post-test of 12 points. Larry
Ultra had an increase from 3 to 15 points. Nicky Johnson also had an increase from 3 to 15
points. Opera James had an increase from 4 to 16 points.
9. What anomalies showed up in the data? What are the anomalies and what are some possible
explanations?
I noticed three anomalies within the data. The first, and most glaring is that of Jack Strong.
Strong’s pre to post-test score actually went down by 4 points from a pre-test score of 8 to a
post-test score of 4. The other two anomalies that I noticed were Foster Brooks and Paul Uber.
Both of these students’ scores went up from the pre to post-test, but not by much. Brooks
scores in particular are interesting because he had the highest scores in both the pre and post-
test, but his score only went up by 2 points. The total number of points possible is 26. On his
pre-test he scored an 18, so there was room for improvement of a possible 8 points. Uber’s
scores only went up by 3 points, and his post-test score was in the bottom 3 of all the scores.
One possible explanation of the anomalies is the simplest, and that is the students in
question were simply not paying attention when the material was being covered and/or did not
study. Without knowing the students in question, I cannot say as to how likely this is, but t is a
definite possibility. The next possible explanation is that the students lacked a visual resource
(i.e. a blank map) from which to study from and take notes on. Also, the time limit imposed on
the assessment could cause poorer performance overall.
10. Future instructional plans? What can or should you do as a result of the post-assessment
scores? Did the students meet the instructional objective goals? What do you plan to do as a
result of the scores? Provide detail.
Overall, for students to achieve 80% accuracy, as per the stated objectives, they would need
to score 21 points out of 26 possible on the assessment. There was not a single student that
achieved this. Based on this overwhelming failure to meet the stated objectives I would first,
wave the assignment and not give the students an official grade for it. Obviously, there was a
failure along the way to teach the students the required information in a way that they could
actually remember it. next the lesson should be tweaked and retaught.
For the tweaking/reteaching of the lesson my first suggestion would be to provide the
students with supplemental materials other than a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Namely,
students should be given a blank of the area of the country in question. Here the student can
identify and label the states and their capitals. This also allows for students to learn not only the
name of the state’s capitals, but also roughly where they are in the states, if this is appropriate
to the grade level. This allows the visual and hands on learners a better way to study and learn
the pertinent information. On the assessment I would have the students place a star where the
state capital is located. I would further change the assessment by having a word bank
(numbered) with the state names in it on the assessment either above or below the blank map.
 In addition, I would remove the 5-minute time limit. The objective of the lesson is not to test
how fast students can identify the states and their capitals. The objective is to that students can
identify the 13 western states and their capitals with 80% accuracy, preferably 100%. Imposing
a time limit only adds unneeded stress to the assessment. Students should be allowed more
time if needed to complete the assessment. I believe that this alone would result in an
improvement of student scores.