One million assessments to support teaching and learning

Media release: One million assessments to support teaching and learning

2pm Thursday 20 September 2018

School students have completed over one million online assessments in the four years since the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) began offering Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) online.

‘The response to online delivery has been really positive and continues to show year on year increases, after an initial 60% increase between 2015 and 2016,’ Graeme Cosslett NZCER Director said.

In 2017 NZCER took the next step in online delivery by introducing PAT: Mathematics Adaptive. The assessment items adapt to student responses, delivering a more personalised experience.

‘For teachers, online testing is easier and faster to administer,’ Mr Cosslett said. ‘The reports are available immediately, and it is these that inform teaching and enable purposeful learning.’

‘We’re continuing to develop new online assessments, with PAT: Vocabulary Adaptive and Te reo Māori: an online language assessment ready for release in Term 4 2018,’ Mr Cosslett said.

Students in Aotearoa have been using PATs since the 1960s. Teachers use the results to plan teaching and report on progress.

NZCER is celebrating the one million milestone with daily prizes for randomly selected schools in the final week of Term 3.

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