Interpreting ASSET Results

ASSET is a unique test that gives you specific feedback that helps you to improve. The feedback is given in the form of three reports: Your personalised circular skill profile, your strength-weakness analysis and a question-wise analysis. These reports will help you pin-point the areas of Strength and weakness so that you can IMPROVE.

• Raw Scores in each subject giving the actual marks scored by the student.
• Percentile Score in each subject giving the percentage of students who have scored less than the candidate all over India.
• Certificate (of achievement or participation based on the performance)

Skill Profile Chart Based on the right and wrong answers marked by the student, the level of proficiency in different skills will be presented in a graphical form.	Skill-wise Analysis Detailed analysis of performance on the different skills in different subjects. This information gives a clear picture of strengths and weaknesses and helps the student focus on improvement.	Question-wise Analysis For each question, the right answer, the percentage of students who answered correctly and the skill involved will be presented. An overall analysis of how the student has performed based on the difficulty level of the questions will also be provided.

Characteristics of the ASSET Testing Programme:

• Provides personalised student feedback.
• Goes deep down every subject area to pick the student’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Provides a crystal clear picture of student performance in easy and understandable language.
• Gives practical and subject related suggestions for improvement.
• Boosts the self-esteem of students by focussing equally on the strengths and the areas needing improvement.
• Going through ASSET consecutively through the years the student can track his/her performance across the subjects.

Comparison of percentage-based scores and the ASSET results:

If the ASSET question paper were used as the final exam paper for Class 4 - the Sample Student scores would look like the following

English 34/50 = 68%
Maths 14/40 = 35%
Science 24/35 = 68%

Going by marks alone it appears that the Sample Student is “Weak” in Maths and “relatively good in English and Science

Does this analysis answer the following questions?

Are there any areas of strength in Maths?
Are there any areas of weakness in English and science?
Is 68% good when compared to other students across the whole country?
Is the student improving over the performance of last year and which areas has there been an improvement?
Which are the concepts that the student has not understood in the portion covered last year and Which are the concepts the student has understood and internalised?
Why is the Sample Student making the mistakes s/he is making?
The Answers to all these questions will be found in your ASSET Results

The ASSET Results Package:

1. Personalised Letter with Circular Skill Profile

2. Score Cards for English, Math and Science (3 sheets - one for each subject)

3. Skill Based Summary and Strength/Weakness Analysis (Front Side, 4th Sheet)

4. Certificate (Participation, Creditable, Distinguished or Outstanding)

How does a student interpret the ASSET Results!!!! Let’s begin our journey into the analysis with the personalised letter, which will answer the following questions:

The Sample Student

Strengths in Maths Weakness in Maths Remedy to the issue
“In Mathematics, you are relatively strong in “Intermediate concepts” including Geometry and Algebra. This includes your ability to visualise and manipulate symbols, which are important Mathematical skills.” However, you could improve in “Advanced problems requiring thinking”. These problems sharpen your analytical ability. Spend time on activities designed to develop these skills - like solving different types of logical and Mathematics puzzles. Similarly the Personalised letter gives an insight into the areas of strength and weakness in English and Science too!

This is one main difference between a school report and an ASSET report. It starts with what the student in Good at and pin points exactly the area of strength and then goes on to state the area of weakness that too very explicitly.

Question 2: Is 68% in English and Science good as compared to other students across the whole country?

To answer this question we need to look at a figure that is called percentile! By the very nature of an assessment test like ASSET where, About 5000 students participate of each class from different schools all over India, it is possible to compare the performance of a student vis-a-vis other students of his/her class in other parts of the country. Care is maintained that all the students have covered the syllabus and there are no questions that are related to facts covered in only some boards.

English 34/50 = 68% = 43.8 Percentile
Maths 14/40 = 35% = 30.8 Percentile
Science 24/35 = 68% = 50.8 Percentile

Now with the percentile scores there is some more clarity on the scores:

1. The 68%, which looked “Okay” as compared to other students, indicates that only 44% of the students who took the test are below the sample student. Or in other words if we consider 100 students to have taken the test there would be 56 (100- 43.8) students above him.

2. In Science the same percentage - 68% has a higher percentile score indicating that 51% of the student that took the test are below him.

This information about percentile scores is critical because the student will be competing with students at the national level in board exams and competitive exams and coming 1st in the school also needs to be checked against the national level to know where the student actually stands. There are a lot of students who find themselves at sea in a new school because their self-concept was benchmarked against weaker students. If the students knew their percentile scores they would get a fair idea of their position vis-a-vis their peers in any part of the country.

Question 3: Is the student improving over the performance of last year and which areas have there been an improvement?

To answer this question we will use the Circular Skill Profile Sheet.

The Circular Skill profile is built using the percentage of the student in each of 12 core skill areas.

English Maths Science
Usage of Grammar Concepts

Reasoning, Interpretation and Appreciation

Understanding state information

Word Attack Skills
Number Sense, Computations and Basic Arithmetic.

Intermediate Concepts, Geometry and Algebra.

Word and Application Problems.

Problem Solving, Advanced Problems
Knowledge of Basic Science Facts.

Conceptual Understanding and Comprehension.

Reasoning and Analysis Skills.

Original Thinking.

These skill areas are same for all classes from 3 to 12. As the student progresses from one class to the next, s/he can compare his/her performance using this profile and check for improvement in each of the basic skill area. The 12 spokes on the circular skill profile diagram represent one core skill. A visual representation is emphasised because it is easier to read and simpler to track. The student can clearly “SEE” his/her areas of strength and weakness and this would make him/her motivated to work harder. The current educational system does not reinforce the areas of strength and the student is left feeling that he is a complete failure!!!

Question 4: Which are the concepts that the student has not understood in the portion covered last year and which are the concepts the student has understood and internalised?

In addition to the circular skill profile where the major skills remain the same across classes, it is important for the student to know which concepts s/he has internalised and which are still unclear to him/her. This is critical because more the number of unclear concepts the greater the phobia for the subject. This leads to a complete breakdown of confidence of tackling problems related to the subject creating a phobia for the subject. This is more so the case for subjects like Maths where the concepts are linked and any confusion at an early stage can lead to a multiplication of that confusion as the student progresses to higher classes.

How then does the ASSET analysis help in indicating the strength and weakness of concepts taught in class.

Refer to the tabular format - SKILL BASED SUMMARY AND STRENGTH WEAKNESS ANALYSIS. This format is like the student’s report card with the only difference being there are no marks/ grades/ percentages. The main reason being that the focus is to find out where the student is strong and where the student is weak vis-a-vis the syllabus covered in the previous year. This methodology of presenting feedback is completely oriented towards improvement.

On the page you will see three tables - One of each subject of English, Math and Science

Each table has six columns.
Column 1 - Serial Number
Column 2 - Name of the Skill being analysed
Column 3 - Answered Right (the question numbers the student has answered correctly)
Column 4 - Answered Wrong (the question numbers the student has answered wrongly) Column 5 - Graph (indicating the level of strength)
Column 6 - S/W (indicating Strength - S or Weakness - W)

Suppose for example a student is W - Weak in “Problem Solving” and has got all the questions related to the skill wrong. The student say is also W - Weak in “Word Problems and visual based problems” and has got 4 out of the 5 questions testing this skill wrong. Therefore this analysis clearly indicates the areas of weakness in Maths for the student and the student can then focus his energies to improve these areas. Both these points get also clearly indicated in the Circular Skill Profile too.

Suppose the Student is S - Strong in “Recognition and usage of all types of words” (English) and is S- Strong in “Making Inferences using contextual clues / prior knowledge.” Say the Student is also strong in Skill No 2 and Skill No 6 in Science. It is clear from the graph that the student is doing well in Science except in one skill - “Integrating different concepts or information for decision making” This analysis can now go to the third level (question wise analysis) to find out exactly what the reason why the student has got the question wrong.

Please Note: Those skills, which do not have 5 or more questions, they are not considered for marking S or W.

Question 5: Why is the Student making the mistakes s/he is making?

For an answer to this question the student will have to look into:

Skill Based Summary and Strength /Weakness Analysis chart.
Score Card of the respective subject.
With reference to a particular skill first go to the Skill Based Summary and Strength Weakness Analysis chart for the questions numbers that the student has got wrong. You have now reached the stage where you know the strength/ weakness level for each skill. Then with the question numbers go to the SCORE CARD to fathom “why” the student is making the mistakes that s/he is making!! After you analyse these mistakes then you need to check if these question were relatively difficult questions or easy question and also what “kind” of error the student made. The following example will help you do that:

Say in Maths student X has got questions 9, 26, 29 related to fractions wrong - because he has not understood the concept of fractions and decimals properly. Out of these if it is seen that Q No 9 is a particularly difficult question because only 14% of the students all over the country have got this correct, and say if Q No 26 was answered correctly by 50% of the students then it is relatively an easy question. This comparison will help the student to know where he stands.

Such analysis can clearly indicate the type of error and the difficulty level of the question that the student got correct or wrong, leading to a more accurate picture of the reasons for the poor performance of the student in the subject!

If you need any more clarifications regarding the analysis please contact us at info@ei-india.com

Regards,
The ASSET TEAM