Important update
Starting with the 2025–26 school year, MyPath Assessment is transitioning to Imagine+ Assessment and will become the Imagine+ Diagnostic. MyPath customers from the 2024–25 school year who used the MyPath Assessment will receive complimentary access to Imagine+ Assessment. The student experience within assessments will remain the same, and placement into MyPath learning paths will continue to function as before.
Learn more about this transition or explore the Imagine+ Assessment Help Center.
Imagine MyPath uses assessment data to personalize instruction in Reading and Math, ensuring each student begins at the right level for their needs. Districts and schools can select from several assessment options to guide student placement, measure growth, and support data-driven instructional decisions throughout the year.
Multiple options allow schools to align assessments with district goals or existing programs, including:
- Imagine+ Diagnostic (formerly MyPath Assessment)
- NWEA™ MAP® Growth Assessment
- Renaissance Star Assessment
Planning your assessment strategy
District Administrators should work with their Imagine Learning Customer Success Manager to select the most appropriate assessment option for their district's goals and needs. Together, they can develop a plan for assessment administration that best supports teaching and learning.
Imagine Learning recommends administering assessments 3–4 times a year to monitor student growth and refine learning paths.
Notes
- Teachers and administrators can manually place students in MyPath learning paths at any time, including before assessment data is available. This option ensures instruction can start promptly while assessments provide data to optimize and update placements later.
- Districts cannot assign different assessment providers on a student-by-student basis. Assessment selection is made at the district or school level to maintain consistency.
- We strongly advise against switching assessment types mid-year. Doing so can disrupt accurate growth tracking and data comparability.
Tip
If your school or district has already selected an assessment option but you aren't sure which one was selected, administrators can view the assessment settings from their educator dashboard. You can also check with a school or district administrator or contact your Imagine Learning Customer Success Manager.
Overview of assessment options
Click on an assessment name below to view detailed information about it.
The Imagine+ Diagnostic is the preferred, computer-adaptive assessment for all implementations that seamlessly integrates with Imagine MyPath. It is available in both Math and English Language Arts (ELA) and supports enhanced personalization to inform individualized learning paths.
Overview:
- Purpose: To identify students’ instructional grade levels and specific academic needs in Math and ELA; measure growth over time; and support targeted instruction through domain-specific data.
- Intended users: K–12 students across all proficiency levels, including those performing below, at, or above grade level, along with educators requiring actionable, detailed data to differentiate instruction.
- Assessment frequency: Up to 4 testing windows annually, with recommended intervals of about 45 days to allow for instructional adjustments and student growth.
- Assessment duration: Typically 45–60 minutes per subject, with 30–45 questions per subject, spread across three adaptive stages for an engaging and manageable testing experience.
Key features:
- Multi-stage, fully adaptive testing that tailors item difficulty based on student performance.
- Assessment of multiple domains within Math and ELA using technology-enhanced items (e.g., drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blank).
- Provides domain-level scores, overall grade-level placement, and includes Lexile and Quantile measures for reading and math proficiency.
- Universal testing tools such as text-to-speech, translation, line reader, and highlighter support accessibility and accommodate diverse student needs.
- Offers a trans-adapted Spanish Math version (Grades K–12) and a complete Spanish Reading version (Grades K–5) for equitable assessment across diverse learners.
Recommended for:
- Districts and schools seeking the most integrated, flexible, and data-rich assessment experience aligned with Imagine Learning products.
- Programs prioritizing domain-level placement for precise instructional targeting.
- Organizations needing detailed growth tracking and versatile scheduling with frequent testing windows.
- Districts aiming to support multilingual learners through enhanced Spanish language capabilities.
Important for Customers with Extended MyPath Assessment Access
For customers whose contracts extend into early 2026, MyPath Assessment access remains available. These customers will continue to experience familiar scheduling, administration, and reporting processes during this transition period. Educators can manage assessment windows, assign tests, and review placement and growth reports as usual within the MyPath platform. The student testing experience and educator interfaces for MyPath Assessment also remain unchanged, supporting continuity in assessment administration.
The NWEA MAP Growth Assessment is a computer-adaptive third-party tool designed to measure students’ academic knowledge, growth, and readiness for upcoming skills in both Math and Reading. It adjusts question difficulty dynamically based on individual student responses, providing personalized and precise insights into each learner’s proficiency.
Overview:
- Purpose: To accurately measure student achievement and academic growth over time and inform personalized instruction.
- Intended users: K–12 students across varied academic levels—from below grade level to advanced learners—and educators who need actionable data for targeted teaching.
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Assessment frequency: Up to four benchmark testing windows per academic year:
- Fall: August 15–November 30
- Winter: December 1–February 28 (or 29 in leap years)
- Spring: March 1–June 15
- Summer: June 16–August 14
- Assessment duration: Approximately 45–60 minutes per subject.
- Reporting & access: Educators access detailed reports via the NWEA portal or through integrated Imagine MyPath reports that sync automatically using student NWEA ID information.
Key features:
- Computer-adaptive test that personalizes item difficulty to each student's skill level.
- Measures performance with granular, domain-specific scores to support detailed learning path personalization.
- Reports include RIT scores, Lexiles for Reading, and Quantiles for Math, enabling educators to understand both achievement and growth.
- Aligned with state and national academic standards for reliable progress monitoring.
Recommended for:
- Organizations already using NWEA district-wide aiming to reduce additional testing burdens.
- Schools seeking domain-specific placement for more refined learning path customization.
- Districts with automated nightly sync capabilities (e.g., Clever, ClassLink, SFTP).
- Institutions comfortable managing assessment data across multiple platforms.
Note
NWEA MAP Growth integration requires rostering setup and coordination with your Imagine Learning Account Executive.
The Renaissance Star Assessment is a computer-adaptive benchmark assessment that measures students’ mastery of grade-level standards in Math and Reading. When integrated with Imagine MyPath, Star data informs placement in individualized learning paths and helps track academic progress over the school year.
Overview:
- Purpose: To measure grade-level mastery and overall academic achievement, providing educators accurate placement data to personalize instruction and monitor progress.
- Intended users: K–12 students in Math and Reading and educators seeking efficient, periodic benchmarks to identify achievement levels and inform targeted instruction.
- Assessment frequency: Typically administered up to 3 times per academic year—beginning, middle, and end of year—following district or school testing schedules.
- Assessment duration: Short testing sessions (20–30 minutes per subject) designed to minimize classroom disruption and reduce test fatigue.
- Reporting & access: Results are accessed in the Renaissance platform and sync automatically with Imagine MyPath via student Renaissance IDs. Educators can review placement data, scaled scores, and student readiness indicators directly within Imagine Learning dashboards.
Key features:
- Computer-adaptive assessment that adjusts difficulty in real time to measure each student's performance across skills and standards; does not share domain-level or subskill scores with MyPath.
- Provides an overall grade placement and scaled score that can be used to set learning goals and track growth over time.
- Aligns with state and Common Core standards, enabling consistent monitoring across classrooms and schools.
Recommended for:
- Districts using Renaissance Star to measure grade-level mastery across Math and Reading.
- Schools seeking overall grade placement (not domain-level) data to support placement within Imagine MyPath.
- Organizations leveraging existing Renaissance data infrastructure for consistency across assessments.
- Educators preferring brief, fixed-form testing cycles to track student progress throughout the year.
Note
Renaissance Star integration requires rostering setup and coordination with your Imagine Learning Account Executive.
Assessment comparison summary
| Feature | Imagine+ Diagnostic | NWEA MAP Growth | Renaissance Star |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects Available | Math and English Language Arts (ELA) | Math and Reading | Math and Reading |
| Type | Computer-adaptive, integrated with Imagine+ Assessment | Computer-adaptive, third-party | Computer-adaptive, third-party |
| Access Platform | Imagine+ Assessment | NWEA platform | Renaissance platform |
| Testing Windows | Up to 4 per year (flexible scheduling) | 4 benchmark periods: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer | Up to 3 per year (Beginning, Middle, End of Year) |
| Assessment Duration | Approximately 45–60 minutes per subject (30–45 questions) | Approximately 45–60 minutes per subject | Approximately 20–30 minutes per subject |
| Language Support | Includes Spanish: Math K–12 and Reading K–5 | English only | English only |
| Placement Detail | Domain-level placement with Lexile and Quantile metrics | Domain-level placement using RIT and Lexile/Quantile metrics | Overall grade-level placement with scaled scores and growth percentiles |
| Integration with Imagine MyPath | Directly syncs for automatic personalized placement | Integrates through automatic sync using NWEA IDs | Integrates through automatic sync using Renaissance IDs |
| Best For | Districts seeking full Imagine Learning integration and flexible scheduling | Districts already using NWEA for benchmarking | Districts already using Renaissance Star for grade-level benchmarking |
| Status | Preferred assessment for all new implementations | Third-party integration option | Third-party integration option |
Overview of placement options
Imagine MyPath offers several methods for placing students in appropriate learning paths:
Automatic placement based on assessments
Once assessments are completed, the programs determine student placements based on their scores. Students may be placed at grade level, below grade level, or up to 2 grades above their rostered grade. The following assessments can be used for automatic placement:
- Imagine+ Diagnostic: Provides domain-level placement based on students' domain scores, with enhanced Spanish support and seamless integration.
- NWEA MAP Growth: Offers domain-specific placement similar to the Imagine+ Diagnostic and MyPath Assessment, allowing for detailed, skill-level learning path customizations. (Requires integration)
- Renaissance Star: Provides an overall grade-level placement without domain-specific placement data. (Requires integration)
Manual placement options
Teachers and Administrators can manually adjust student placements when:
- Assessment results do not accurately reflect a student's abilities. This might be the case if the assessment does not fully capture their skills.
- Immediate placement is needed without recent assessment data, such as when a new student joins the school without recent assessment data.
- You want to use scores from other, non-integrated assessments to guide placement decisions.
The following manual placement options are available:
- Direct manual placement: You can manually assign placements on the Student Placement page.
- Placement using scaled scores: For NWEA MAP Growth or Renaissance Star, scaled scores can be used to determine placement, although this approach does not incorporate domain-specific data into the generation of a student's learning path.
- Placement using external assessment data: For districts using assessments not integrated with the programs, the district can determine grade level placement based on external assessment results. If the external assessment provides a grade level equivalent score, we recommend using this for the program placement.
- Bulk placement: For larger organizations without an assessment integration, Administrators can bulk-assign placements to students from the Student Placement page.
When you determine that a student should begin with lower-grade content or is ready for higher-level content, you have the flexibility to modify placements regardless of how they were originally set.
Managing learning path settings
After initial placement, you can further manage a student’s path using two key features available in the placement modal:
- Lock Placement: Prevents future assessment scores (including from Imagine+ Diagnostic, NWEA™, or Renaissance Star) from automatically changing the student's placement grade. Use this when you want a student to remain on a designated path, regardless of new test results.
- Enable Content Bridge: For students placed one or more grades above their rostered grade, you can enable the Content Bridge. This assigns a condensed set of lessons from their rostered grade before advancing to higher-grade content—ideal if you want to reinforce key concepts before moving a student ahead.
For detailed instructions on using these features, see: Managing a student’s learning path settings.
Frequently asked questions
Related articles
- Understanding domain placement and students' learning paths in Imagine MyPath: Learn how assessment data creates personalized learning experiences.
- Manually assigning a learning path to a student in Imagine MyPath: Step-by-step guide for manual placement without assessment data.
- Using the Cumulative Performance report in Imagine MyPath: Access comprehensive student performance and growth data.
- Placing students based on external assessment data: Guidelines for using non-integrated assessment results for placement.
- Changing a student's placement grade in Imagine MyPath: Instructions for adjusting student placements.