[sims] Using range of scores to set 'grade boundaries'

[mkersyshull]

Morning all

 

We are currently developing a KS3 system where we use pupil's scaled scores to assign pupils a 'band' eg Band 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a... then use assessment scores to analyse if they are on track or not.

 

For example:

Pupil A

Scaled score 117

Therefore Band 1a

The must then achieve in the top 6% of scores from an assessment.

 

We use 'grade boundaries' to assign a 'band' eg Band 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a .... to each assessment score and compare this to the pupil's band.

 

My question:

Is there any way for sims to analyse the attainment scores, calculate the range and then assign these as grade boundaries? So the top 6% of scores would be given 1a, the next 13% 1b etc

[coolhands]

I did not find a way. I do something similar which is simply (!) looking at high mid low prior attainers and seeing if they are underperforming by using quartiles of the marks scored. So very similar to your idea. The problem as you will also have is that each subjects range of marks varies. ie in an easy test all students get between 50 and 90%, in a hard test, they all score between 5 and 40%. So in my case we find the median and lower quartile of the range of marks for that subject, then if the high prior attainer does not get higher than the median, we classify them as underperforming. If mid prior attainer falls in the lower quartile, we classify them as underperforming.

 

This is essentially what you are wanting to do. It takes an extensive amount of time to be able to write these formulas in excel, because you have all students (of a year group) taking many subjects. You need to calculate the quartiles and median for each subject then see if each student falls below the threshold according to their individual result, and if they’re a high or mid prior attainer to then classify them as underperforming or not.

 

That is all hard enough and you can see I only use high / mid / low, and a simple underperforming yes or no according to their result vs their ability band. Yours is the same idea (I think) but you’ve taken it up to 11 as you want more and finer grade thresholds. I suggest it would be too difficult and baring in mind the inaccuracy of different department tests that they make the students sit, not any better anyway.

 

Long and short can do in excel, could never do it all within sims, we did investigate but no chance.

Edited July 18, 2024 by coolhands

[coolhands]

On the other hand I may have over complicated your idea - you could perhaps do something like what you want as you can rank within sims. So you can get it to look at the test results, rank the students and then you could probably assign a value against various boundaries. Eg if ranked 1 to 15 in the cohort give them band 1a etc. but I don’t think will work very well as you will find clumps of students within certain mark ranges, and get a lumpy output I expect. My gut feeling is would not be great output even if you got it working.

[bobsmith]

Have you managed to re-invent levels?

 

 

 

joking aside - this is doable in powerbi or excel but sims/bromcom/arbor would all fail to deliver this. (well you could probably do it in bromcom with a LOT of columns breaking the steps down into teeny tiny pieces).

[ajp233]

Pretty sure you can do this using lookup tables in SIMS. Focus > Assessment > Lookup Tables Edited July 19, 2024 by ajp233

[bobsmith]

but they would need to be dynamic if we are following the OPs process.

 

1. teachers input data

2. calculate max and min test scores across the cohort

3. now divide that range up into percentiles

4. now we can reference the actual score achieved by a student and place it within a percentile range

5. now we can lookup the "band"

 

rinse and repeat the whole process for every subject.