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e-asTTle Writing |
| Assessment Area |
English-Writing
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| Year level |
1-10 |
| NZ origin? |
Yes |
| Standardised? |
Yes |
| Administration to individual or group? |
Either , although more commonly used with groups of students. |
| What does it assess? |
Features of writing aligned to the New Zealand Curriculum 2007, within five different purposes: recount, describe, explain, narrate, persuade. |
| Purpose |
e-asTTle allows teachers and school leaders to electronically set writing tests that are aligned to the curriculum; to analyse results to assess student and group needs; and to measure student progress over time. Tests can be tailored to the specific needs of the classroom. |
| Validity |
Writing prompts within each purpose are tested for validity. |
| Reliability |
There is evidence of inter-marker reliability. |
| What measures does it give? |
The tool converts rubric scores set by the marker to e-asTTle writing scores and curriculum level and sub level equivalents. It provides specific feedback (rather than simply providing a score) and identifies areas of student weakness and strength that may otherwise go unnoticed. It gives teachers a rich picture of how well a student, class, or school is doing compared with national average performance and the curriculum requirements (including curriculum levels). It allows comparisons with other groupings such as gender, ethnicity, English as a second language, or 'schools like mine'. |
| How long does it take to administer? |
40 minute assessment, with ten minutes required for set-up |
| How much training is needed? |
Teachers often require extensive training in scoring student writing. e-asTTle provides scoring rubrics, marked and annotated specific and generic exemplars and a moderation tutorial. Training in marking and moderating is necessary and very useful professional development.
Additional training is needed in test creation, data base administration, and in report analysis. e-asTTle training is available in the form of self-paced learning modules. Check under Availability below for the link. |
| Scoring and data analysis |
The accuracy of the results is entirely dependent on the accuracy of the scoring. Teachers score against a common rubric for six of the seven elements of writing. The exception is the element of Structure and Language, where there is a different rubric for each writing purpose. Once results have been entered, a range of interactive graphic reports is generated which allows analysis of achievement against curriculum levels, curriculum objectives and population norms. Reports are available for individual students, classes and year levels, and for different groups of students such as gender and ethnicity groupings. For details of the reports available, click on Further Information at the bottom of this page. |
| Does it provide 'what next' strategies? |
Yes , e-asTTle supports teachers by giving them direction and access to extensive and relevant internet resources (What Next on the Te Kete Ipurangi website) at the level of instruction for the students. |
| Is it available in te reo Maori? |
Yes , is available as Tuhituhi. |
| Cost? |
The use of e-asTTle is free of charge. There can be costs in paper and administration. |
| Author, date of publication and publisher |
Developed by NZCER for The Ministry of Education, 2011 |
| Availability |
The Ministry of Education is committed to ensuring all schools can access e-asTTle. If your school does not already have access to e-asTTle and wants to be registered, please contact the Education Service Desk. The e-asTTle website is updated regularly to provide the most recent information on the assessment tool, including details on e-asTTle training. |
| Further Information |
e-asTTle generates standardised pen and paper writing assessments within parameters chosen by the teacher. Tests are created to assess writing capability within the purposes of Persuade, Narrate, Describe, Explain, and Recount.
- Rubric scores are entered into the on-line data base and reports produced from each test, which cover the following:
- Console Report – Group achievement is shown in a box and whisker graph and compared with national achievement norms.
- Group Learning Pathways – This report identifies curriculum outcomes that groups of students have or have not achieved, and in which they have strengths or gaps.
- Individual Learning Pathways – A report is generated for each student which shows curriculum outcomes achieved or not achieved, and strengths and gaps in learning.
- Curriculum Level Report – Graphs show the spread of levels and sub-levels for each curriculum function, and the students who fall into each of those levels.
- Progress Report – Student progress can be tracked over time.
- Tabular Output – A table shows test scores and curriculum levels for each individual student, which can be downloaded as a spreadsheet for further analysis.
- What Next Profile – This shows an average group curriculum level within each curriculum function, and enables users to access resources at each level on the e-asTTle What Next website.
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