- Using PVAAS for a Purpose
- Key Concepts
- PEERS
- About PEERS
- Understanding the PEERS pages
- Evaluation List
- Evaluation Summary
- Evaluation Forms
- Add Educator
- Add Evaluator
- Manage Access
- Add a school-level Educator to PEERS
- Add a district-level Educator to PEERS
- Add the Evaluator permission to a user's account
- Remove the Evaluator permission from a district user's account
- Add the Evaluator or Administrative Evaluator permission to a district user's account
- Remove the Administrative Evaluator permission from a district user's account
- Remove an Educator from PEERS
- Restore a removed Educator
- Assign an Educator to a district-level Evaluator
- Assign an Educator to an Evaluator
- Unassign an Educator from an Evaluator
- Assign an Educator to a school
- Unassign an Educator from a school
- Link a PVAAS account to an Educator
- Working with Evaluations
- Switch between Educator and Evaluator
- View an evaluation
- Use filters to display only certain evaluations
- Print the Summary section of an evaluation
- Understanding evaluation statuses
- Determine whether other evaluators have access to an evaluation
- Lock or unlock an evaluation
- Save your changes
- Mark an evaluation as Ready for Conference
- Release one or more evaluations
- Download data from released evaluations to XLSX
- Make changes to an evaluation marked Ready for Conference
- Reports
- School Reports
- LEA/District Reports
- Teacher Reports
- Student Reports
- Comparison Reports
- Human Capital Retention Dashboard
- Roster Verification (RV)
- Getting Started
- All Actions by Role
- All Actions for Teachers
- All Actions for School Administrators or Roster Approvers
- Manage teachers' access to RV
- Assign other school users the Roster Approver permission
- View a teacher's rosters
- Take control of a teacher's rosters
- Add and remove rosters for a teacher
- Copy a roster
- Apply a percentage of instructional time to every student on a roster
- Batch print overclaimed and underclaimed students
- Remove students from a roster
- Add a student to a roster
- Return a teacher's rosters to the teacher
- Approve a teacher's rosters
- Submit your school's rosters to the district
- All Actions for district admin or district roster approvers
- Assign other LEA/district users the Roster Approver permission
- Take control of a school's rosters
- View a teacher's rosters
- View the history of a teacher's rosters
- Edit a teacher's rosters
- Add and remove rosters for a teacher
- Copy a roster
- Apply a percentage of instructional time to every student on a roster
- Batch print overclaimed and underclaimed students
- Return a school's rosters to the school
- Approve rosters that you have verified
- Submit your district's rosters
- Understanding the RV Pages
- Viewing the History of Actions on Rosters
- Additional Resources
- Admin Help
- General Help
Scatterplots
Building a Scatterplot
When you select Scatterplots from the Reports menu, you will be prompted to choose:
- Population
- Base Year
- Base Test and Subject
When plotting assessments analyzed with the growth standard methodology, select Across Grades to see combined measures across all grades for each LEA/district and school you include on the graph.
Once you've made these selections, the scatterplot will automatically populate with the data that are attributed to those selections. The Population and Base Year, Test, and Subject can be changed by clicking Scatterplot Configurations button in the main panel.
Choose the Axes
By default, Achievement vs. Growth is selected for the axes. To change the X and Y axes, choose from the Axes Selection drop-down menu in the main panel. If you choose a predefined selection, a short paragraph of interpretation is displayed above the graph. You can also create a custom scatterplot. To do so, open the Axes Selection drop-down menu and choose Custom Axis Selections. Two new drop-down menus appear below to select the variable for the vertical axis (Y axis) and the horizontal axis (X axis). |
Average Growth Index: The AGI indicates how strong the evidence is that the group of students in the LEA/district, school, or teacher's class exceeded, met, or did not meet the growth standard in the selected subject. The AGI is calculated by dividing the growth measure by its standard error. Because the AGI takes the standard error into account, it is a fair way to compare different members of the selected population.
| If the AGI is | Students, on average, made the following type of progress |
|---|---|
Equal to or near 0 | Progress similar to the growth standard |
Greater than 0 | More progress than the growth standard |
Less than 0 | Less progress than the growth standard |
Achievement: This value represents the achievement of students in the LEA/district, school, or teacher's class in the currently selected year, subject, or Keystone content area. For assessments analyzed with the growth standard methodology, the achievement is the average of the most recent prior year available and current year scores for students in the district or school and is expressed in reference group NCEs. For assessments analyzed with the predictive methodology, the entering achievement is the average of the predicted score for students in the LEA/district, school, or teacher's class expressed in scale scores.
% Proficient or Advanced: This value represents the percentage of students who performed at a Proficient or Advanced level on the selected state assessment. For Keystone exams, the percentages you see here follow the business rules established by Pennsylvania for which scores to include. For example, a student who is only proficient based on their "super score" is not considered proficient.
Demographic Options: The percentages represent the proportion of students tested in the selected grades who are identified as belonging to that demographic category.
Compare By Selector
By default, the Compare By Selector in the main panel is set to None. Selecting one of the comparison options available will add a Compare By bar above the graph with available comparators listed. For example, if you select Year, other years available for the particular Base Test and Subject will be made available. The Base Year chosen in the Scatterplot Configurations menu will display by default and will be highlighted with a cog icon. Clicking on another year will switch the data points on the graph to the data from that year.
Graph Data Table
Highlight data points from the selected population
Data Navigator: This tab lists entities included in the scatterplot, starting with districts. Hovering over a district will temporarily highlight the data points associated with it on the graph. Clicking on the district will make the highlight persist and narrow the Data Navigator to only display the data points attached to that district. If the selected population focuses on schools, the individual schools can also be highlighted. Click All Districts to reset the graph and the Data Navigator list to the default view.
Raw Data Table: This tab shows a table of all entities available on the scatterplot along with their data points for the selected axes.
Search for an entity: Use this drop-down menu to search for a specific entity to highlight on the scatterplot. Narrow down the options listed by typing in the name of the chosen entity.
Graph Legend
Total Data Points: The total amount of data points included on the graph based on the selections made in the Scatterplot Configurations is listed here.
Data Points: The data points are represented by two different colors. Purple data points have additional information available or are in focus. If a particular entity is in focus, the name of the entity will be listed in the legend next to the purple dot. Gray data points are considered background data, and they represent data that does not have additional information or are not currently highlighted.
Show Background Data: This toggle enables or disables displaying any background data points on the graph.
Downloading Scatterplots
Scatterplots can be saved as an Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx format) by clicking on the Download Report button in the upper right corner of the report. A window opens where the file name can be determined. Click Download Report to save the report to your computer. The resulting spreadsheet will include data based on the population and axes selected in the main panel.