Data Analysis with Active Discovery
1. Login to Active Discovery. Make sure the School and Grade are set properly.
2. Select Reporting Switchboard 1, then Test Detail Analysis
3. The next screens will walk you through the details for your report:
Years – the current school year is selected. You can select other years in
column 1 if you want to compare this year’s level with last year, etc. Make
your selection and then click Select the Grades.
Grades – This has to match with the years. If you are only looking at current
data, select the current grade. If you selected last year to compare, then you
need to select the previous year’s grade as well. So, for current 3rd graders,
you would select Grades 2 and Grade 3. Click Select the Tests.
Tests – select the Test(s) that you want to see. Less can be better than more
here, especially if you are comparing over different years. Make your
selection and click View Testing Opportunities.
Testing Opportunities – Rank the tests that you want to view in the order
that you want to view them. Pay attention to the test, year, and grade. For
example, if you want to compare last year’s to this year’s IRL, you would
rank: (1) 2008 Midyear Grade 2 and (2) 2009 Midyear Grade 3. Check under
Tests currently selected to make sure your selections make sense. Click Select
Student Demographics to show.
Student Demographics – Default selections are in green. You must have 6
selected. If you want a different demographic, you can make changes. Unless
you have a specific purpose, such as comparing male to female progress, leave
the defaults. Click View the Analysis List. Two screens will open. One has
the scores stacked in rows and is color-coded. This screen is nice for the
color-coding, but not as useful for analysis. If you click on the back screen or
select Test and Program Analysis from the task bar (screen with green
columns) you will see the scores listed in columns rather than rows. This
makes it easier to compare. You can filter, sort, and print this form as it is.
4. If you would like to manipulate the data, such as color-coding, you can import
into Excel by clicking on the green Excel icon at the bottom of the page.
This is a 2-step process. Two windows open. The first window has the
headers and the second has the scores. On the first window, click on the 2 to
select Row 2 and then copy. Open the second window, click on 1 to select
Row 1 and then paste.