How to Retest Students within a Term

You may have various reasons for retesting, including:

  • excessive rapid-guessing, such as 30% or more of the questions possible on the test (known as the “rapid-guessing threshold”)  

  • an extreme drop in scores between terms
  • unusual changes in test duration
  • invalidation due to short duration or other invalid criteria (see Invalid Tests and Growth Criteria)

Whatever the reason, retesting students begins with a careful, thoughtful decision. Proctors, leaders, and teachers should work closely to make sure retesting is warranted and adheres to district and state policies. For more guidance, see Your Retesting Policy .

Scenario 1—First test was suspended:

In this example, the Proctor decided to suspend the student’s test, because the student reached the rapid-guessing threshold and was not capable of reengaging that day.

Download Session Progress button

  1. Before closing the testing session, the Proctor kept a record of the rapid guessing by clicking Download Session Progress from the Proctor console:

    The downloaded information shows whether the student reached the threshold:

    Sample spreadsheet with student who reached rapid-guessing threshold

  2. After discussing the high rapid-guess count, the teacher and school leaders agreed that the student should start the test over instead of continuing.

  3. When the student came back for retesting, the Proctor used Find Students to Test, chose the Test History Search tab, and selected the Suspended Test search filter:

    Find Your Students filters with Suspended Test filter selected

  4. After selecting the student and assigning the same test, the Proctor started the testing session.

    Note: Do not expect to see the last question number or the rapid-guessing count listed with the student.

  5. When the Proctor confirmed the student to start, he chose Start Test Over instead of Resume:

    Prompt labeled Action Needed to Continue Test and and menu choices Resume Test, Do Not Confirm, and Start Test Over

    Caution: If students did not reach the rapid-guessing threshold, Proctors should avoid the Start Test Over option. In those situations, the default retesting rules would restrict the student from continuing. However, when a student reaches the rapid-guessing threshold, it triggers an exception to allow starting the test over.

Scenario 2—First test was completed:

In this example, the Proctor decided to let the student finish testing despite repeated rapid guessing, in hopes the student would engage with the test. However, after looking at the score impact, educators asked the student to retest.

  1. On the Student Profile report, the teacher saw the estimated impact that rapid guessing had on the student’s score.

    In this example, an impact of –3 means the student might have scored 213 if fully engaged during testing:

    Summary results for math test with Rapid-Guessing percentage showing 12 and Estimated Impact on RIT showing negative 3

  2. Leaders analyzed similar students using the files generated from the Data Export Scheduler. To access the files, they followed these steps: start page > MAP Growth tab > MAP Growth Reports > Data Export Scheduler > Comprehensive Data File or Combined Data File (CDFs).

    Example report highlighting the Rapid-Guessing percentage

  3. To find all students in need of retesting, the Proctor used Find Students to Test, choose the Test History Search tab, and selected the Test Engagement search filter:

    Find Your Students filters with Test Engagement filter selected

  4. The Proctor reassigned the same test as before and started it just like any new test.

Scenario 3—Other retesting:

Your school policies could require retesting for other reasons, even if the rapid-guessing alert did not occur. For example, a test could become invalid because it fails to meet the NWEA criteria for a valid test  (see Invalid Tests and Growth Criteria).

In these cases, the Proctor would retest using the same steps as normal testing (see Set Up Testing in MAP).