Smart Classroom Technologies

Survey: Most Teachers Aren't Comfortable Connecting Data to Instruction

• By Leila Meyer
• 07/22/15

Formative assessments are intended to help educators gauge students' progress throughout the learning process, so teachers can tailor their lessons to address any gaps. However, many teachers are struggling to access assessment data quickly and interpret and act upon it in a way that supports their instruction, according to a recent survey from Lexia Learning.

Lexia Learning, a reading technology company owned by Rosetta Stone, surveyed more than 200 educators at the recent International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) 2015 Conference and Expo in Philadelphia, PA. According to the company, the survey results "indicated there is a growing need to have assessments more quickly pinpoint skill deficiencies while rapidly providing teachers with connections to actionable data for immediate instructional planning."

Key findings from the survey include the following:

• 35 percent of the survey respondents said that teachers at their schools have a high or very high level of comfort connecting data to instruction;
• 48 percent said that their current screener assessments provide clear categorizations of which students were on track and which needed more attention;
• 54 percent said that teachers in their schools have assessment data that tells them whether intervention plans are working;
• 37 percent said their assessment data told them how to change an ineffective intervention plan currently in place;
• 83 percent thought that screener assessments should take 30 minutes or less; and
• 47 percent said their screener assessments could be administered within that timeframe.

The results of this survey seem to indicate that there is room for improvement in digital formative assessment tools and that educators would benefit from additional guidance on using the assessment data to inform their instruction.