Placing students based on external assessment data

Imagine MyPath allows for student learning path placement based on various assessments. Districts and schools can administer the embedded MyPath Assessment to automatically place students in their learning path. Imagine Learning also offers automated assessment integrations that enable placing students based on assessment data from NWEA or Renaissance Star for Reading/Math. Educators can also manually place students on the MyPath Placements page.

Districts and schools may also wish to place students in MyPath based on the results of another external assessment. In this case, the district or school determines a grade level placement for each student based on the assessment results. 

Districts and schools that choose to use this method should understand the types of data provided by the external assessment and how this data might be interpreted with respect to student grade placement.

Information needed to proceed timely and efficiently through this process

Does the district or school assessment provide a grade level equivalent score for each student?

If the assessment provides a grade level equivalent score, we recommend using this data to identify the appropriate grade placement in MyPath.

 Note

Students can only be placed at the beginning of a grade level in MyPath, so we recommend districts round a student’s grade level equivalent score down to the nearest whole number. 

What if the district or school assessment does NOT provide a grade level equivalent score for each student?

If the assessment does NOT provide a grade level equivalent score, the district or school must decide how to determine each student’s grade level placement in MyPath based on the data available from the assessment. For example, a district or school might choose to determine grade placements based on percentile rank, if that is a data point reported by the external assessment. In this case, the district or school might determine that students who score between the 1st and 24th percentile will be placed at one grade level below their rostered grade, students who score between the 25th and 75th percentile will be placed at their rostered grade, and students who score between the 76th and 99th percentile will be placed at one grade above their rostered grade. This is just one example, a district or school might choose any other approach to placement that is appropriate based on the data reported by the external assessment. The Imagine Learning Assessment Team is available to help customers make decisions on approaches to student grade-level placements.