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e-asTTle – Creating and managing tests

This resource provides information on how to create and manage e-asTTle tests for maths, reading, writing and pānui, pāngarau, and tuhituhi.

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  • AudienceKaiako
  • Resource LanguageEnglish

About this resource

e-asTTle is an online assessment tool, developed to assess students’ achievement and progress in reading, mathematics, writing, and in pānui, pāngarau, and tuhituhi.  

This section of the e-asTTle collection provides guidance on creating and managing tests, including information on the difference between customised and adaptive tests, and paper and onscreen tests. This resource also contains Administration Guidelines and Instructions, attitude question sets, practice test scripts, and curriculum objectives. 

To login to e-asTTle, click here: e-asTTle - Welcome (education.govt.nz) 

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e-asTTle has a standardised writing test that can be used from Years 1-10. However, it is only suitable for students who can independently communicate at least one or two simple ideas in writing. Students who score in the lowest category for every element assessed by e-asTTle writing are not well targeted by the assessment. 

There are six writing purposes included in the tool:

  • Describe - a moment in time 
  • Describe - a process 
  • Explain 
  • Persuade 
  • Narrate 
  • Recount

There are also six writing purposes in the tool for tuhituhi: 

  • Narrate 
  • Recount 
  • Describe 
  • Explain 
  • Instruct 
  • Persuade
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Use your professional judgment when choosing a prompt to ensure that it is appropriate for your students.

While you are creating your writing/tuhituhi test, you can click on the thumbnail images next to the test name to view each prompt.

  • Think about the level of abstract thought required. For example, Community facility, which is the focus of one prompt, is a highly abstract term more suited to older students.
  • Consider the complexity of the structure appropriate to the purpose. For example, narrating requires the writer to use a more complex structure than describing or recounting.
  • Some prompts will suit older students because they cover topics relating to the wider world. The prompts below are written in slightly simplified language and are better suited to younger students.

Recounting prompts


Whānau and family time, Time with friends, and What I did well. 

Describing prompts


Girl, Adult, and child, and Dogs at the beach. 

Choosing a variety of prompts according to the needs and interests of your students will increase student engagement. Doing so won’t significantly increase marking time, however introducing each prompt and discussing the topic will make test administration more complicated. Teachers who wish to use more than one prompt might want to consider assessing different prompts at different times.  

 

Tests with Images

When generating writing tests, you will notice that some tests have an image and some do not. This is intentional.

The following explains the distinction.

  • Whanau and family time prompt does not have an associated image because students should be recounting an actual experience with their family. Providing an image may influence what the students write about.
  • Dogs at the beach test does have an image. It is expected students will use this image to describe a moment in time.

See Materials that come with this resource to download e-asTTle writing prompts for all purposes. pdf and e-asTTle tuhituhi prompts for all purposes. pdf

Creating an e-asTTle writing or tuhituhi assessment involves selecting an appropriate prompt and attitude domain.

Note: For tuhituhi, there is no prompt selection there is only one option.

 

Creating a test – this process is the same for both writing and tuhituhi

1.   Click on ‘Create a test’.

2.   Click on ‘Create Writing/Tuhituhi Prompt’.

3.   Enter a test name and a short description (if needed). Select the appropriate subject and click ‘Continue'. Note that writing/tuhituhi tests have a specified 40-minute test duration.

4.   The writing/tuhituhi prompts are grouped by purpose. Use the slider to select one purpose. This screen will also ask you so select an attitude domain. Click ‘Continue’ when ready.

A screenshot of the e-asTTle tool showing the Purpose & Attitude page of Creating a writing prompt.

Image description: A screenshot of the e-asTTle tool showing the Purpose & Attitude page of Creating a writing prompt. Five vertical lines are labelled Narrate, Recount, Describe, Explain, and Persuade. Each line has a circle indicating either Yes or No: if the circle is at the top of the vertical line, it indicates that is the purpose of the test, if the circle is at the bottom, it indicates that is not the purpose of the writing.

 

5.   Select a prompt. Each prompt is provided with a short description. For some purposes you may need to scroll down to view all available prompts. To preview a prompt, click on the image and preview will appear. If this does not occur, please check pop-ups are enabled. Make your selection by clicking the appropriate radio button and press ‘continue'.

A screenshot of the e-asTTle tool showing the Prompt menu.

Image description: A screenshot of e-asTTle showing the Prompt menu. ‘Narrate Writing Prompts’ is written, followed by 3 possible prompts including selectable box, image, and explanation. The first is: The bush – Every picture tells a story. Use your imagination and experience to narrate (tell) a story about the photo. The second is: I heard a whisper but no-one was there – Imagine you heard a whisper but couldn’t see who had whispered. Write to narrate (tell) a story about a whisper. The third is: The day things started disappearing: Imagine that things start to mysteriously disappear... One thing disappears, then another thing has gone, and another... Write to narrate (tell) a story about the strange disappearances. The first prompt is selected.

 

6.   Review test details and if you are happy with the settings click ‘Create Test'.  Otherwise click ‘Go Back’ to edit your settings.

7.   Once you create a test it is given a ‘Pending’ status. A pending test can be viewed, revised, accepted, edited, or deleted. At this stage, the pages of the test will contain a watermark stating that the test is pending. The watermark disappears when you ‘Accept’ the test.

8.   Accept the test.

9.   Once you do this you can no longer edit the test details apart from the test name. You can view and print the test. If you only want to print some of the test components use the print options to select the components you want.

Note:  A writing test is a combination of components.

A tuhituhi test includes:

  • administration instructions
  • the prompt
  • student response booklet
  • key characteristics for the writing purpose
  • scoring rubric
  • annotated exemplars
  • glossary of terms for the writing purpose.

A writing test includes:

  • administration instructions
  • the prompt
  • student response booklet
  • marking rubric 
  • structure and language notes
  • annotated exemplars for the prompt
  • glossary and definitions.

For writing, you can print the generic exemplars from the Print Options screen. They are used to support the scoring process, especially when the specific exemplars do not provide rubric levels to compare against. These are exemplars of different levels and from different purposes and prompts.

The process for marking e-asTTle writing and supporting resources for this can be found on e-asTTle – Marking tests.

The e-asTTle Writing Manual is located in e-asTTle – Reference material.

Writing/Tuhituhi Elements

The e-asTTle writing rubric assesses seven different elements:

  • Ideas
  • Structure and language
  • Organisation
  • Vocabulary
  • Sentence structure
  • Punctuation
  • Spelling 

The e-asTTle tuhituhi rubric assesses seven different elements:

  • Audience Awareness and Purpose
  • Content/Ideas
  • Structure/Organisation
  • Language Resources
  • Grammar
  • Punctuation
  • Spelling 

 

Attitude sets

Writing and tuhituhi have their own set of attitude questions.

For more information about attitude sets refer to the General Information for setting up tests accordion on the Test Administration and General Information tab.

See Materials that come with this resource to download Writing Attitude sets. pdf and Tuhituhi, Pānui and Pāngarau Attitude sets. pdf

e-asTTle norms and curriculum expectations by quarter: Writing and Tuhituhi (July 2013)

In some e-asTTle reports (and in ‘Student Results and Targets’), student results can be compared to norms and curriculum expectations, these can help teachers to notice, recognise and respond to progress over time and take appropriate action when expected progress is not being made.

The norms show the middle 50% of New Zealand student results, broken down across each quarter of the year. In 2013, the norms of writing and tuhituhi were psychometrically recalibrated using e-asTTle result that had been collected over the previous years.

The curriculum expectations for Year 4-10 are the same as those used for Reading, which vary slightly from those used for Mathematics. The expectations for Years 1-3 have been extrapolated downwards from Year 4, so be mindful of this when analysing results for younger students.

To view the Writing Norms and curriculum expectations, visit e-asTTle – Reference material.