Potential Cause(s):

• No Aligned Content: There are currently no items in the bank aligned to that specific standard.
• Inactive Item Bank: The specific item bank or set of standards may not be activated for your district yet. 

• Check your filters: Clear all active filters and try searching by standard again.
• Contact Support: Reach out to our team at support-pathways@learningexplorer.com and we will verify if the bank needs to be activated for your district.

Potential Cause(s):

• Standard Set Not Activated: Each content area must be manually toggled on for your district by the Pathways Assessment Team. If you are a new user or your district has recently purchased a new subject area, the standards may not be activated yet.

      Recommended Next Steps:

• Check with your colleagues: Verify if other teachers in your building can see the content area. If no one has access, it is a district-wide activation issue.
• Contact Support: Reach out to our team at support-pathways@learningexplorer.com and we will verify if the set of standards needs to be activated for your district.

Potential Cause(s):

• Ownership Restrictions: To protect assessment integrity, teacher users can only directly edit assessments that they personally created. They cannot edit assessments created by other teachers, school administrators, or the Pathways Assessment team.

     Recommended Next Steps:

• Check Ownership: Verify who created the assessment. If the author is another user, editing is unavailable.
• Use the 'Copy' Function: If you want to use a colleague's assessment, you must first create your own version of it. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our article on copying an assessment.

• Active Assignments: Once an assessment has been assigned to a student or a class (by you or another teacher), the system locks it to prevent data errors. You cannot edit a test while it is actively being used for a live assignment.

     Recommended Next Steps:

• Option A: Fix the Original Assessment
  • To Fix the original assessment, you must remove all active assignments associated with the assessment.
  • Review your list of assignments and delete any associated with this assessment. For instructions, see Delete an Assignment.
• Option B: Keep Existing Student Data and Create a New Version
  • If assignments have been completed by students and you do not want to lose existing scores, use the 'Copy" functionality.
  • Select the assessment and complete the steps to create a copy of the assessment. Make the necessary edits to the copy for future use.

Pathways Assessment created content such as Benchmarks, Snapshots, Power Checks, and/or Stepping Stones cannot be copied. District-level administrators can copy any district-level assessment created by the district. School-level administrators can copy any school-level or teacher-level assessments created at their school. Teacher users can copy any teacher-level assessments created at their school, including assessments created by other teachers.

Once an assessment has been assigned, it cannot be edited. To edit the assessment, you must either delete the assignment or make a copy of the assessment.

However, items can be deactivated from an assessment even after an assignment has been created. Students will see the deactivated item(s) on the assignment(s), but those deactivated items will not count towards the students' scores.

Yes, Pathways Assessment has 'bulk-assign' functionality. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our article on Batch Assigning an Assessment.

While an assignment can be unpublished, it cannot be re-opened for a retake or editing answers once it is initially published. 

If a student needs to retake the assessment or fix an error for an assignment that has been published:

1. Unpublish the assignment
2. Delete the student from the assignment
3. Publish the original assignment
4. Create a new assignment for the student

For teacher users, Text-To-Speech is enabled for individual students on the assignment page. For a detailed step-by-step walkthrough, see our article on Adding Text-to-Speech from the Assignment Page.

Admin users can also manage Text-To-Speech on the assignments page, or they can manage Text-To-Speech for a student for all future assignments. Our article Managing Text-To-Speech By Student includes additional details on this process.

If a student tests after the initial administration, it is recommended to create a separate assignment for the makeup student(s). As long as the same teacher is chosen for all of the students in the class, the system will automatically merge the make-up data.

To delete a student's test results:

1.  The assignment containing the results for the students needs to be unpublished. For a detailed walkthrough, see our article on Unpublishing An Assignment.
2.  After the assignment is unpublished, select the icon to the left of the Student ID number in the  assignment to delete the student.
3.  After the student is deleted, the assignment will need to be published for the updated results to be viewed on the data reports.

There are multiple options to ensure that students do not take one another's assessments.

• Option A: Student ID Numbers
  • Teachers can select student IDs as the sign-in method for assessments they create so that a student would need the specific student ID number of another student to be able to sign in.
• Option B: Access Codes
  • After all students have signed in for their own assessment, teacher users can change the assignment access code.

Pathways Assessment allows for paper administrations. For details, please refer to our articles Printing an Assessment and Printing a Bubble Sheet. Currently, the ability to print bubble sheets is only available for districts that administers the state assessment in a paper format.

The scoring guide (answer key) is viewable from the test list. For a detailed walkthrough, see our article on Viewing an Answer Key. 

Post administration, the scoring guide and student responses can be viewed in the Student Item Analysis Report.

Currently, only the classroom teacher listed on the assignment and users with administrator access at the school are able to view student assessment reports.

Please review the following articles for an explanation by your specific state.

• Mississippi
• Tennessee
• Alabama
• Kentucky

The recommended way to review cut scores is to run the Performance Distribution report for the assessment once the projected performance level data is available. The bottom of the report indicates the cut score where each performance level begins for the benchmark. For instructions on navigating to the assessment reports portal, see Accessing Assessment Reports.

Since length and rigor vary by assessment, Pathways Assessment determines cut scores using data that is unique to each assessment. By customizing cut scores according to each assessment, student projected performance levels are more closely aligned to those of the state assessment.

Pathways Assessment determines suggested grades according to student performance level projections. Since this determination is customized according to the data for each individual assessment, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' chart for suggested grades. To understand more about this process, see Suggested Averages Explained.

Suggested grades for a benchmark can be located in the student level 'Student Results' report. For instructions on navigating to the assessment reports portal, see Accessing Assessment Report.

Due to the high precision of scaled scores, accurately projecting a student's exact scaled score is not feasible. To avoid presenting misleading data, Pathways Assessment does not provide scaled score projects for benchmarks.

The cut scores used to determine performance levels for Pathways Assessment benchmarks are based on the previous year's state test cut scores. Pathways Assessment creates a probability matrix to set its cut scores, utilizing a mathematical method called normalizing. This method presumes that if, for example, 15% of the testing group are projected to earn a performance level of 5 on this year's state test, then the Pathways Assessment cut scores will be set such that 15% of students will earn a performance level of 5 on the benchmark. The probability matrix used by Pathways Assessment is populated with data from the previous year's state test.

In addition, the method calculates the projected state test performance level distribution of the testing group based on their performance on a similar set of items (anchor items) from a previous year's benchmark. This makes the Pathways Assessment cut score setting process a very close approximation of the state department of education's method.

Prior to testing, all devices should receive the following attention:

• Update the web browser version if necessary.
• Clear all cached images and files for the web browser.
• Restart the computer or device being used.

If you are testing with iPads, the device should be placed in a horizontal position to maximize screen width during testing.

Once the internet connection is restored, have students log back in. Be prepared to enter the proctor code, if necessary.

If it takes more than 10 seconds to load or save answers during testing, the network may be overloaded. We'd recommend the following action steps:

• Check with the school or district technology department regarding the district bandwidth. If the district or school network does not seem to be the cause, encourage the technology contact to reach out to us via support-pathways@learningexplorer.com or by calling 877-233-7833.
• Encourage patience among students and avoid page refreshing or clicking the web browser's back button.
• Limit the number of concurrently testing students to what the district/school bandwidth has supported during past administrations.
• It may also help to stagger student logins so that not all students are attempting to login to the assessment at the same time.

If there is an invalid student ID error:

• Confirm the student ID is entered correctly.
• Verify the correct ID for the student by navigating to Pathways to Proficiency --> Measures --> Assignments. Then select the folder icon for the assignment and scroll to the bottom to view the student roster for the assignment.
• Some student ID issues are related to errors in the roster data that has been shared with Pathways Assessment via Clever or ClassLink. If you suspect this, contact us via support-pathways@learningexplorer.com or by calling 877-233-7833.