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Report Term and Score Explanations
Report Terms
Total Enrollment on First Day of Testing
Schools were
required to submit a STAR answer document for every student enrolled
on the first day of testing whether or not a student was tested. The
Total Enrollment on First Day of Testing is the number of answer
documents submitted for the school, district, county, or the state.
Total Number Tested
This is the number of
students who responded to any questions on the California
Standards Tests (CSTs) and California Achievement Tests,
Sixth Edition Survey (CAT/6) or who were assessed with the
California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA).
Students Tested
The number of students with valid test
scores for the content area reported. This is the number of students
used for calculating the average scores reported.
Mean Scaled Score for CSTs
This is
the arithmetic mean of average of the scaled scores for all
students who took grade-level CSTs without modifications for
whom no adult testing irregularities were reported. The
scaled scores for each grade and content area for the CSTs
range between 150 (low) to 600 (high).
Performance Standards
Performance standards
identify levels of student achievement based on a demonstrated
degree of mastery of the academic content standards tested.
California uses five performance standards for its California
Standards Tests:
- Advanced performance in relation to the academic content
standards tested
- Proficient performance in relation to the academic content
standards tested
- Basic performance in relation to the academic content
standards tested
- Below Basic performance in relation to the academic content
standards tested
- Far-Below Basic performance in relation to the academic
content standards tested
The number and percent of students with California Standards Test scores
for English-language arts, mathematics, science and history-social
science at each performance standard are reported for schools,
districts, counties, and the state. At grades 2, 3, 5, 6, and
8 through 11, the performance standards are based only on the multiple-choice
component of the standards tests. The grade 4 and 7
writing test scores are added to the multiple-choice scores, and the
performance standards are based on this total English-language arts
test score.
The performance standards for each grade and content area are
based on scaled scores that range between 150 and 600. The score
dividing the basic scores from below-basic is 300 for every grade
and content area. The score dividing basic scores from proficient
scores is 350 for every grade and content area. Tables that include
the score range for each grade level, content area, and academic
performance (achievement) standard are at http://www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/star/star.html.
EOC (End of Course)
The CST mathematics tests for
grades 8 though 11 and the CST science tests for grades 9 through 11
are aligned with the courses the students completed or will complete
by the end of the school year. The EOC column summarizes the results
for all students within the school, district, county, or state who
took each course/discipline specific test.
Percentile Ranks
A percentile rank is the
percent of people in the norming sample who had scores less than or
equal to a student's score. A student with a reading comprehension
score at the 60th percentile scored as well or better than 60
percent of the students in the norming groups.
NPR (National Percentile Rank) of the "Average"
Student
There is no provision for producing group
level, school or district percentile ranks. The percentile ranks of
individual students cannot be used to produce an average percentile
rank for a group, because percentile ranks cannot be added or
averaged across students. The national percentile rank for the
"average" student is an arithmetically derived score that may not
equal a score for any student in the group. This is why the score is
attributed to a hypothetical student.
% Scoring Above the 75th NPR, % Scoring At or Above the
50th NPR, and % Scoring Above the 25th NPR
These scores
correspond to the percent of students in the school, district,
county, or state with scores corresponding to those of students in
the top quarter of the 1995 national sample (above 75th NPR), in the
top half of the 1995 national sample (at or above the 50th NPR), and
in the top three-quarters of the 1995 national sample (above the
25th NPR). The percent of students scoring above each level is
calculated by counting the number of students with scores above a
particular NPR (76th NPR and higher) and dividing by the total
number of students tested. Note that the percent of students scoring
at or above the 50th NPR is a subset of students scoring above the
25th NPR, and the percent of students scoring above the 75th NPR is
a subset of the group scoring at or above the 50th NPR. The percent
of students scoring at or above the 50th NPR is sometimes referred
to as the percent of students scoring at or above grade level. To
obtain the percent of students in the school, district, county or
state that had scores in the lowest quarter of the national sample
subtract the percent scoring above the 25th NPR from 100.
Mean Scaled Score
Raw scores identify the number of questions answered correctly on a
test or sub-test. Score tables are used to convert raw scores to
scaled scores. A scaled score takes differences in the difficulty of
test forms into account. Scaled scores are useful for reporting
changes over time. The Stanford 9 provides results in terms of
scaled scores for individual students and mean or average scaled
scores for groups of students. Scaled scores are also reported for
the California Standards Tests for individual students and mean or
average scaled scores for groups of students. Stanford 9 scaled
scores cannot be compared with the California Standards Tests.
Scaled scores should also not be used to compare two different
content areas, such as reading and mathematics, on the same test.
Scaled scores for individual students or groups of students within
each content area should increase each year on the Stanford 9
because the tests use a continuous scale from the lowest to the
highest grade levels of the tests. The California Standards Tests
scaled scores may not increase from year to year, because each grade
and content area is scaled independently rather than using a
continuous scale from the lowest to the highest grade.
% Of Enrollment
Schools submitted student
information for every student enrolled on the first day the
California Standards and CAT/6 tests were administered. The
percentage of enrollment is the number of students with valid test
scores divided by the number of students enrolled on the first day
of testing. In some instances the percentage may exceed 100% due to
students who enrolled in a school after the first day of testing who
were tested with subtests administered after they enrolled. The % of
Enrollment is not reported for the End of Course summary column of
course/discipline specific tests.
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