Am I progressing well while learning at home?

The unprecedented COVID-19 education disruptions have impelled schools to adopt online teaching. This has also reinforced the idea that learning is collaborative where teachers and parents work closely to help learners progress from one level to another.

ACER India CEO Amit Kaushik recently wrote, ‘…an independent learner would be capable of self-assessment to arrive at a realistic understanding of their growth, identifying areas for further learning on that basis.’

From this perspective, students may want to check if they are on track. In which areas have they excelled? What could be improved? And on what should they focus next? Similarly, parents may wonder if their children have progressed well while learning online from home.

Students can use high-quality assessments for rich feedback on how well they have learnt and areas that would require more effort. Diagnostic assessments provide a clear and detailed picture of individual learning, assisting students in their self-improvement journey.

ACER’s International Benchmark Tests (IBT) at home assessments can be taken anytime and anywhere. IBT@Home uses cutting-edge technology and approaches to measure the competencies of students and provide rich data pinpointing students’ strengths and challenges. The assessment is available in English, mathematics, and science for students in Grades 3─10.

IBT@Home helps students to:

• get rich diagnostic data on their skills and knowledge
• check their learning level frequently
• understand the improvement in their performance over the years
• realise how far they can stretch their learning targets
• get a detailed picture of strengths and challenges
• measure higher order thinking skills.

Dr Mee Young Han, ACER India’s Director Research & Assessment says, ‘IBT provides a high degree of accuracy to student results through high quality test items and the application of advanced testing theory to measure students’ learning levels. The way IBT test items are developed ensures that the tests ask valid and reliable questions of related subject competencies.’

‘IBT adopts the same analysis methodology that renowned international learning assessments, including PISA and TIMSS, use as best practice. This enables IBT to identify and define student learning levels across academic cohorts and over time, even if students attempt different sets of test items.’

The student results are mapped to a progressive achievement scale that provides bands with clear descriptions of what students know and can do, and what more can they achieve, enabling self-monitoring of one’s own learning growth over time.

The IBT@Home Comprehensive Student Report provides:

• Raw score: the number of correct responses for the test
• Scale score: helps to track performance over the years
• Achievement bands: describe skills and understandings demonstrated in each test for a subject
• Question performance analysis: performance on each question in a skill area within the subject
• Percentile rank: helps to compare performances of students.

IBT@Home is a tool that enables students to check their own progress at regular intervals. With the help of rich and reliable data, students can take the tests around the year to measure improvement over time. To learn more about the IBT@Home programme, contact: sales.india@acer.org.