MONITORING STANDARDS IN EDUCATION

Random Sample Assessment Program

MSE Assessment History

Reporting

School Assessment Materials

Forthcoming Assessments

Order Forms

Making Consistent Judgements

Tracking Student Performance

• General Information

• Reading Correspondence Table

• Listening Correspondence Table

• Mathematics Correspondence Tables

• Science Correspondence Table

General Information

It is possible to track student performance over time on different tests within a strand by using correspondence tables. The correspondence tables allow three important comparisons to be made:

• Performance of a cohort can be tracked over time
• Performance of a group of students can be tracked over time
• Performance of individual students can be tracked over time

Thus, tracking student performance over time gives schools important information:

• Comparisons between the same cohort in different years
• Progress that groups of students make in their learning
• Progress that individual students make in their learning
• The effects of curriculum focus at different times

All assessments in a strand (e.g. Life and Living, from the Science Learning Area) are plotted onto the same scale, known as the WAMSE (Western Australian Monitoring Standards in Education) scale. This scale is used by the Department to compare the performance of students from year to year. The scale is an arbitrary scale from 0 to 800, measured in WAMSE units.

All questions used to assess a strand across year groups and across years of testing are mapped onto the scale, in increasing order of difficulty. In this way, the relative position of items on each assessment and the relative difficulty of the assessments can be seen.

Please note that no inter-strand comparisons can be made. For example, performance on a Year 3 reading assessment cannot be compared to performance on a Listening assessment.

Reading Correspondence Table

Click on the link below to go to the Reading Correspondence Table.

As MSE Random Sample assessments (and hence the MSE School Assessment Materials) are linked to the WALNA assessments, information on WALNA/ MSE correspondences are included.

The MSE Reading School Assessment Materials referred to in the table are those that use the following reading texts:

• Year 3: The Fox and the Lion, Stick Insects, Sally's View and Colour Wheels
• Year 7: Stick Insects, Sally's View, Gifts and Gift of the GAB
• Year 10: Archie Roach, Olympic Win for Frogs, Gifts, Men Running Past and Gift of the GAB

Correspondences between these reading assessments and WALNA assessments in Year 3 in 1998, Years 3 and 5 in 1999 and 2000 and Years 3, 5 and 7 in 2001 are included in the table.

Reading Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 13KB or excel 29KB)

Listening Correspondence Table

Click on the link below to go to the Listening Correspondence Table.

This table shows correspondences between the MSE Listening School Assessment Materials for the Poetry modules across Years 3, 7 and 10. These materials are based on the following stimulus material:

• Year 3: Doug Mcleod
• Year 7: Robin Klein
• Year 10: Tim Winton

Listening Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)

Mathematics Correspondence Tables

These links show Mathematics Tables for each strand, for the years 3, 5, 7,10a and 10b Mathematics assessments:

• Chance & Data Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Measurement Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Number Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Space Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Working Mathematically Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)

Science Correspondence Tables

These links show Correspondence Tables for each strand, for the years 3, 7 and 10 Science assessments:

• Natural and Processed Materials Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Life and Living Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Energy and Change Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)
• Earth and Beyond Correspondence Table (Adobe Acrobat 6KB or excel 19KB)