Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility Page 5: Understand Challenges When Comparing Data
  • IRIS Center
  • Resources
    • IRIS Resource Locator
      Modules, case studies, activities, & more
    • Evidence-Based Practice Summaries
      Research annotations
    • High-Leverage Practices
      IRIS resources on HLPs
    • Films
      Portrayals of people with disabilities
    • Children's Books
      Portrayals of people with disabilities
    • Glossary
      Disability related terms
    • For PD Providers
      Sample PD activities, planning forms, & more
    • For Faculty
      Top tips, coursework planning, & more
    • Website Navigation Videos
      Getting around our Website & modules
    • New & Coming Soon
      Latest modules & resources
    • IRIS Archived Resources
      Modules, alignment tools, & more
  • PD Options
    • PD Certificates for Educators
      Our certificate, your PD hours
    • Log in to Your IRIS PD
    • For PD Providers
      Sample PD activities, planning forms, & more
    • IRIS+ School & District Platform
      A powerful tool for school leaders
  • Articles & Reports
    • Articles
      Articles about IRIS use & efficacy
    • Internal IRIS Reports
      Reports on IRIS use & accomplishments
    • External Evaluation Reports
      Evaluations of the IRIS Center
    • IRIS Stories
      Our resources, your stories
    • News & Events
      What, when, & where it's happening
  • Help
    • Help & Support
      Get the full benefit from our resources
    • Website Navigation Videos
      Getting around our Website & modules
  • Accessing the General Education Curriculum: Considerations for Students with Disabilities (Archived)
Challenge
Initial Thoughts
Perspectives & Resources

Ms. Flores and Mr. Ericson are reviewing the large-scale assessment data across all grade levels and want to improve the scores of students with disabilities. What problems do you think they might discover? (Opinion Question: No Resources)

How can Ms. Flores and Mr. Ericson use the school summary data to guide their efforts to help improve the scores of students with disabilities?

  • 1: A Quick Review
  • 2: Understand the Data
  • 3: A First Glance at the Data
  • 4: Compare Data
  • 5: Understand Challenges When Comparing Data
  • 6: Make Improvements

What questions should Ms. Flores and Mr. Ericson ask the general and special education teachers?

  • 7: What Is Being Taught?
  • 8: Legal Standards
  • 9: Using the Curriculum
  • 10: Legal Requirements
  • 11: Accommodations
  • 12: Modifications
  • 13: Alternate Assessments
  • 14: Summary

Resources

  • 15: References & Additional Resources
  • 16: Credits
Wrap Up
Assessment
Provide Feedback

How can Ms. Flores and Mr. Ericson use the school summary data to guide their efforts to help improve the scores of students with disabilities?

Page 5: Understand Challenges When Comparing Data

It is crucial for principals to know what data are being reported and to understand the data they are interpreting. However, it is often impossible to determine whether all or some students with disabilities participated in the tests. It is common for states to:

  • Not clearly differentiate scores of students with disabilities
  • Not differentiate scores of students who take the test with accommodations versus students who take an alternate assessment
  • Aggregate—or include—the scores from tests taken with “nonapproved” accommodations with standard test scores
  • Not report scores of tests taken with nonstandard accommodations and not indicate that they are not reporting them

Caution must be used when interpreting data for groups. When the highest performing students in special education move to general education and the lowest performing students in general education move to special education, the performance of special education students appears to not improve over time. It is important to keep track of mobility in and out of special education and to look at data in a number of ways.

Listen now as Victor Nolet explains the challenge of interpreting data for a small group of students (time: 1:07).

Victor Nolet, PhD,
Associate Professor
Department of Special Education
Western Washington University

/wp-content/uploads/module_media/agc_media/audio/AGC_audio_p05.mp3

Transcript

Transcript: Victor Nolet, PhD

One of the things that you have to be particularly concerned with in making decisions is the effect of when there aren’t very many students in the group, a small change can make a big difference. And if a principal is thinking about the performance of students with disabilities in their large scale assessments, they may look at the performance of a group of students and notice, well, our performance doesn’t seem to be as good this year as it was last year. Are we making progress as a school? Or are we making progress as a program? When there are only a half a dozen or a dozen students in a group, you might only have ten or fifteen students with disabilities in your large-scale assessment. Any one of those individuals might make a great deal of improvement, might not improve this year. One student could move in or move away, and now we have a very big change in our data that are really being caused by a very small, we talk about it as a small n. So we’re always concerned when we’re looking at the effects of our programs on, particularly groups of students with disabilities, on the effects of those small groups.

The problem of interpreting data for small groups of students can be somewhat alleviated by conducting additional assessments, including contextually relevant methods such as portfolios of student work or progress tests throughout the year.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Back Next
12345678...16
Join Our E-Newsletter Sign Up
  • Home
  • About IRIS
  • Sitemap
  • Web Accessibility
  • Glossary
  • Terms of Use
  • Careers at IRIS
  • Contact Us
Join Our E-Newsletter Sign Up

The IRIS Center Peabody College Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 37203 [email protected]. The IRIS Center is funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Grant #H325E220001. The contents of this website do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Anna Macedonia.

Copyright 2025 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

* For refund and privacy policy information visit our Help & Support page.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Vanderbilt Peabody College
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok