How do I view statistics about a completed assessment?

You can view statistical information about student submissions to an assessment, such as average scores and standard deviation.

For information on entering assessment grades and comments, see How do I grade Tests & Quizzes?

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Select the Published Copies tab.

Select the Published Copies tab to view the assessments that have been released to students in your site.

Go to the assessment submissions.

Select Scores from the Action drop-down menu for the assessment.

Alternatively, you may select the number of student submissions in the Submitted column to view the submissions.

Select the Statistics tab.

View Statistics page.

The Statistics page displays information including the number of students who submitted the assessment, average scores, standard deviation, how many students selected particular responses to each question, and the percentage of students who answered automatically-graded questions correctly.

Below are descriptions of the various elements on this page.

View Options

If the assessment allowed multiple submissions, or a student submitted a retake, two View options may be available on the Statistics page:

  • The Highest or Last Submission
  • All Submissions

Available view options depend on the assessment's Recorded Score setting; for example, if the highest score was recorded, the Highest Submission displays by default.  If the average score was recorded, All Submissions will be the only option available on the Statistics page.

Grade Statistics

The Grade Statistics table includes the following.  Example values below are for a quiz where 9 students earned the following scores: 65, 70, 86.67, 88, 90, 93.34, 95, 95, 100.

  1. Submissions: The total number of student submissions to the assessment, e.g., 9.
  2. Total Score Possible: The assessment's total point value, e.g., 100.
  3. Mean: The average of all the scores students earned, e.g., 87.
  4. Median: The middle score among the set of scores that students earned, e.g., 90.
  5. Mode: The score that was earned by the most students, e.g., 95. More than one value may display for the Mode if the same number of students earned different scores.
  6. Range: The lowest and highest scores that students earned, e.g., 65 - 100.
  7. Quartile 1: When all the students' scores are listed in order from least to greatest, the middle number in the lower half of the scores earned, e.g., 86.67.
  8. Quartile 3: When all the students' scores are listed in order from least to greatest, the middle number in the upper half of the scores earned, e.g., 95.
  9. Standard Deviation: A value that indicates how much most students' scores vary from the average (mean) score. For example, with a Standard Deviation of 11.83, students in the class tended to earn an average of approximately 11.83 points more or less than the mean of 87 points.

Final Score Distribution

The Final Score Distribution graph is a bar chart which indicates how many students earned final scores that fall within the ranges of point values indicated.

Ranges of point values are displayed in open and closed intervals. In the graph pictured above:

  • Where the Number of Points is [65,69), and the Number of Students indicated on the bar is 1, one student earned a score starting at 65 (closed interval), and less than 69 points (open interval).
  • Where the Number of Points is [97,100], and the Number of Students indicated on the bar is 1, one student earned a score starting at 97 through 100 points (closed interval).

Note: Score adjustments entered on the Total Scores screen for students with No Submission will not be included in the Final Score Distribution.

Individual Question Statistics

The information displayed for each question depends on the type of question.

Multiple Choice and True False

For each multiple choice and true false question, the following information is displayed:

  1. Answer Options: Answers students could select.
  2. Correctness: Whether the corresponding answer option was correct or not correct.
  3. Number of Responses: The number of students who selected a particular answer option, along with a progress bar indicating the percentage of students who selected that answer option when responding to the question.
  4. How many students answered the question, and of those who answered, the percentage who selected all correct answers (and no incorrect answers, for multiple choice, multiple selection).

Fill in the Blank and Numeric Response

For each fill in the blank and numeric response question, the following information is displayed:

  1. Answer Options: Possible correct answers.
  2. Number of Responses: The number of students who correctly filled in the blank corresponding to the answer option(s) shown for that blank, along with a progress bar indicating the percentage of students who correctly filled in that blank when responding to the question.
  3. How many students answered the question, and of those who answered, the percentage who entered correct answers for all the blanks.

Manually-Graded Questions

For each manually-graded question, such as a short answer/essay, student audio response, or file upload question, the following information is displayed:

  1. Points Scored: Ranges of possible point values.
  2. Number of Responses: How many students earned a score that falls within the specified range of points, along with a progress bar indicating the percentage of students who earned scores in that range when responding to the question.
  3. Responses: How many students submitted the assessment.
  4. Total Points Possible: The question's point value.
  5. Mean: The average of all the scores students earned for the question.
  6. Median: The middle score among the set of scores that students earned for the question.
  7. Mode: The score that was earned by the most students for the question. More than one value may display for the Mode if the same number of students earned different scores.

Matching

For a matching question, the following information is displayed:

  1. Answer Options: The choices for which students must select matching responses.
  2. Number of Correct Responses: The number of students who selected the correct match for the corresponding choice, along with a progress bar indicating the percentage of students who selected a correct match for that choice when responding to the question.
  3. How many students answered the question, and of those who answered, the percentage who made correct matches for all choices.

Calculated Questions

For a calculated question, the following information is displayed:

  1. Answer Options: As different students may have to answer the same calculated question with different values, the answer options shown are correct and incorrect.
  2. Correctness: Whether the answer was correct or not correct.
  3. Number of Responses: The number of students who entered the correct or incorrect answer, along with a progress bar indicating the percentage of students who answered correctly or incorrectly when responding to the question.
  4. How many students answered the question, and of those who answered, the percentage who entered correct answers for all the blanks.

Survey Questions

For each survey question, the following are displayed:

  1. Answer Options: Possible answers.
  2. Number of Responses: The number of students who selected that answer, along with a progress bar to indicate the percentage of students who selected that answer option when responding to the question.
  3. How many students answered that question.

Survey - Matrix of Choices

For each survey - matrix of choices question, the following are displayed:

  1. Answer Options: The answers that appear on the first column of the matrix.
  2. Answer Key: For each answer option, there is a smaller table with the following columns:
    • Match: The possible answers you can select from the other columns of the matrix.
    • Number of Responses: The number of students who selected that answer, along with a progress bar to indicate the percentage of students who selected that answer option when responding to the question.
  3. How many students answered that question.

Select the Item Analysis tab.

View Item Analysis page.

If your assessment has automatically-graded questions, such as multiple choice, true false, and fill in the blank questions, the Item Analysis page gives a quick table overview of their statistics.

View Options

If the assessment allowed multiple submissions, or a student submitted a retake, two View options may be available on the Item Analysis page:

  • The Highest or Last Submission
  • All Submissions

Available view options depend on the assessment's Recorded Score setting; for example, if the highest score was recorded, the Highest Submission displays by default.  If the average score was recorded, All Submissions will be the only option available on the Item Analysis page.

Item Analysis Information

The Item Analysis table includes the following columns:

  1. Question - Each question is listed as the letter Q with the question number (e.g., Q1, Q2). If the assessment was organized into multiple parts, the part number is included with the letter P (e.g., P1-Q1, P1-Q2, P2-Q1).  Manually-graded questions, such as short answer/essay and student audio response questions, are not displayed at all.  Pictured above is an Item Analysis page for a quiz with 7 questions, where only Q1-Q5 and Q7 are shown, because question 6 is a short answer/essay question.
  2. Question Text - The text of each question.
  3. N - The number of students who submitted answers to the question.
  4. % Correct: Whole Group - Out of all the students who answered the question, how many of them answered correctly.
  5. % Correct: Upper 27% - Out of the 27% of students who got the highest scores for the assessment overall, how many answered the question correctly.
  6. % Correct: Lower 27% - Out of the 27% of students who got the lowest scores for the assessment overall, how many answered the question correctly.
  7. Discrim - The discrimination index (from -1 to 1) is a measure of how well a question distinguishes between high-scoring students and low-scoring students. For more information, see the section below: How can I use Discrim to evaluate assessment questions?
  8. No Answer - How many students who submitted the assessment skipped the question.
  9. Answers - The columns with letters, e.g., A, B, C, D, have a slightly different meaning depending on the type of question. For more information, see the section below: What do the letters in the table mean?

Frequently Asked Questions about Item Analysis

How can I use Discrim to evaluate assessment questions?

The discrimination index is calculated based on the number of correct answers to the question that were submitted by the upper 27% and the lower 27% of students who submitted the assessment. Discrimination may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a question as follows:

  • A positive discrimination index of at least 0.2 is desirable. A positive number indicates that students who got high scores on the assessment also tended to answer the question correctly, and students with low scores tended to answer the question incorrectly.
  • A discrimination index of 0 means all students answered the question correctly.
  • A negative number suggests that there may be an issue with the question, such as an error in the answer key. A negative number indicates that the students with the highest scores on the assessment overall tended to answer the question incorrectly, while the students with the lowest scores tended to answer the question correctly.

What do the letters in the table mean?

You can read the letters in the Item Analysis table as follows:

  1. True False Questions: A is true and B is false. The number of students who submitted the correct answer is in bold text.
  2. Multiple Choice Questions: Each letter is an answer option. When the number under a letter column is in bold text, the corresponding answer option is a correct answer (some multiple choice questions have more than one correct answer option).
  3. Fill in the Blank or Numeric Response Questions: Each letter corresponds to a blank, and the number under it is the number of students who entered a correct answer for that blank.
  4. Matching Questions: Each letter corresponds to a matching item, and the number under it is the number of students who selected the correct match for that item.
  5. Calculated Questions: A is incorrect and B is correct. The number of students who submitted a correct answer is also in bold text.