Combining
Paper and Online Modes of Administration
Important: Only Administrators and Account Holders can create, edit, and delete test events. Teachers can view but not create, edit, or delete test events in DataManager.
A test event in DataManager constitutes one assessment product (for example, Logramos) across one test administration season, date, or date range.
Prior to setting up test events for your organization, you should have an understanding of your organization's testing and reporting needs.
Several considerations should inform the way you set up test events.
Combining
Paper and Online Modes of Administration
If you want to combine different testing modes into one set of reported results, your administration date on the Order for Scoring Services form (OSS) must match the date specified on the DataManager test event page. Location names for cover pages should also match verbatim (for example, "Keeney Elementary" in the locations.xlsx file and on the Locations page of DataManager should be written on the cover page for paper-pencil as "Keeney Elementary" with nothing additional and no abbreviations). See Multi-mode testing preparation.
Test administrations that should roll up into one report must belong to the same test event.
Note: When test results are submitted under different test events, data do not roll up into group summary reports. A separate group summary report is created for each test event.
If your organization uses more than one assessment product (for example, CogAT and Logramos), you must create a separate test event for each, and you cannot roll up the data into the same report.
For instructions specific to IowaFlex, see Test administration dates for IowaFlex testing (below).
For CogAT, Iowa, and Logramos assessments, your test event date should reflect the midpoint in your test administration window. If you administer tests from September 1 to September 30, then select September 15 as your test event date.
You can begin testing up to 30 days prior to and 30 days after the test event date. During this time, you can administer tests to multiple schools within a school system and multiple grades within a school. Test events automatically expire 30 days from your test event date so that your estimated administrations can be reconciled against the number of students that actually took the test.
While not recommended, it is possible to extend the test event window beyond 30 days. (A common reason for reopening a test event is to process makeup sessions that occur after the majority of students have been tested.) If you want the testing window to exceed five weeks, consider setting up monthly test events. Limiting the duration of your test events will ensure the most valid and reliable data possible in your score reports. To that effort, if testing is completed in less than 30 days, you may close a test event prior to its 30-day expiration so that scores can be aggregated and reports produced.
If you are administering a two-part CogAT test, screening and post-screener, set up the post-screener event immediately after you have set up and saved the screening, and ensure that the post-screener occurs within 30 days of the screening.
You can back-date a test event up to 60 days prior to the current date. This allows you to account for test administrations that have already occurred but have not yet been scanned and scored. Setting a test event in the past allows you to have your data scored using a midpoint date in the past. In these cases, the test event automatically expires 30 days from the date you enter the event into DataManager.
For IowaFlex, enter start and end test dates in two separate designated fields. The start date defaults to today's date, but you can select a date up to 60 days in the past. The end date defaults to 30 days from today's date. You can change the dates from the default values the first time you set up a test event. You can edit the test event end date one additional time after the initial setup.
Event-Based,
Referral-Based, or Benchmark Testing
Testing programs generally fall into one of three categories, event-based, referral-based, or benchmark. In some cases, a program contains elements of more than one category.
This is the most common type of testing program for the Iowa Assessments™, Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT®), and Logramos®.
During a test event that is categorized as event-based, student assessments are completed over the course of several days or weeks. Prior to the start of event-based testing, it is typically known which students will be taking the assessments.
The following table provides examples of event-based testing for each assessment type. In each of these examples, all assessments are administered over the course of several days to a few weeks.
Assessment Type |
Example |
Iowa Assessments |
All students at designated grade levels take assessments for the purposes of instructional planning, district-wide resource analysis, universal screening, and so on. This testing often happens early in the fall or late in the spring, but midyear test events are also fairly common. |
CogAT |
All students at designated grade levels take assessments for the purposes of accommodating their unique abilities and learning styles into instructional planning and design. |
Logramos Third Edition |
All English Language Learner (ELL) students at designated grade levels take assessments for the purposes of instructional planning, district-wide resources analysis, universal screening, etc. This testing often happens early in fall or late in the spring, but midyear test events are also fairly common. |
Event-Based Testing Guidelines
If your district employs an event-based testing program, you should set up a single test event for the entire school system. You should not set up more than one test event, and you should not set up test events for each school or class within the school system. DataManager guides you through the process to set up an event-based test event and by default will not allow you to create an additional test event if an existing test event is open in a given normative period.
In referral-based testing, not all students take the test, and they may be referred just weeks or days in advance of the test administration. Referral-based testing may occur over a longer period of time than event-based testing, being administered on a continual basis over the course of several months or longer, as needed.
The following table provides examples of referral-based testing for each assessment type.
Assessment Type |
Example |
Iowa Assessments |
Intake screening of new students that may be joining your district after the formal start of your academic year. You may be screening a new student for an instructional placement decision, or if your district includes a large percentage of ELL students, you may be screening a student to determine the extent to which they can thrive in English-language coursework. |
CogAT |
Referral-based testing is quite common. An example includes referrals for giftedness evaluation due to parent or educator inquires. |
Logramos Third Edition |
Intake screening of new ELL students that may be joining your district after the formal start of your academic year. You may be screening a new student to measure academic achievement in the student’s native language and help inform instructional placement decisions. |
Referral-Based Testing Guidelines
If your district employs a referral-based testing program, you should set up a single event for each month during which testing will occur. When tests are administered, use the test event corresponding to the month of test administration. This is especially important when administering the CogAT tests because the test event date and a student’s date of birth are used to calculate a student’s age. Using rolling, monthly test events will ensure a student’s age is calculated accurately for the purposes of generating age-based scores.
Note: DataManager prevents the accidental creation of multiple test events in the same normative period. If you attempt to create a test event when another is already open, you will receive an error message stating that another test event is already open for the current normative period. If you encounter this error while you are trying to set up a referral-based testing program, please contact the DataManager Support Center Monday through Friday at 1-877-246-8337 or [email protected], and they will help reconfigure your account for referral-based testing setup.
Combined Event- and Referral-Based
Testing
You may discover that your assessment program contains elements of both event-based and referral-based testing. For example, you administer the Iowa Assessments early in the fall for the purpose of universally screening students and administer CogAT on a continual basis throughout the year as students are referred to be evaluated for participation in gifted and talented courses.
In this example, your test event setup would reflect a single test event for the Iowa Assessments and monthly test events for CogAT.
Benchmark testing characterizes IowaFlex Reading and Mathematics assessments in that it gauges students' progress throughout the school year. Because these tests take little time and effort on the part of the student while affording the benefits of adaptability, they provide immediate feedback on where instruction has been successful and where it needs improvement.
The following diagram shows the integration of benchmark testing with event-based testing using the Iowa Assessments.
Once you have determined your testing and reporting needs, follow the instructions for creating a CogAT, Iowa Assessments, Logramos, or IowaFlex test event.
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