Assessments of Reading, Writing and Mathematics, Primary and Junior Divisions
Primary and Junior Divisions: Preparing for the Assessment Administration
On direction from the Ministry of Education, the assessments are being made available to students who are learning in person.
If students who are learning remotely wish to participate in the assessments, the board may plan for students to participate in person.
The use of personal student devices must align with school and school board policies as well as with the technical requirements for the e-assessment system.
Primary and Junior Divisions: Reporting
Grade 9 Assessment of Mathematics
Grade 9: Preparing for the Assessment Administration
On direction of the Ministry of Education, the assessment is being made available to students who are learning in person. Should students who are learning remotely wish to participate in the test, the board may plan for their participation in person.
The use of personal student devices must align with school and school board policies as well as with the technical requirements for the e-assessment system.
Grade 9: Reporting
Teachers will have access to reports shortly after the results have been submitted. Principals are required to validate student information before the reports are made accessible.
OSSLT
OSSLT: General Questions
The literacy graduation requirement has been restored beginning with students graduating in the 2022–2023 school year. Students graduating in 2022–2023 are required to meet the literacy graduation requirement. All students in Grades 10 and 11 and non-graduating students, including those who are learning remotely, must also work toward the literacy graduation requirement by participating in the OSSLT or completing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course (OSSLC).
To provide maximum flexibility for students to acquire the literacy graduation requirement, particularly for students enrolled in remote learning, students can be enrolled in the OSSLC without having attempted the OSSLT in 2022–2023. As of the 2022–2023 school year, the eligibility criteria for the adjudication process for the literacy graduation requirement will revert to the policy outlined in Ontario Schools: Kindergarten to Grade 12: Policy and Program Requirements, 2016 (pp. 65–66).
The online OSSLT will be administered between November 2 and December 7, 2022, and between March 1 and April 26, 2023. The test does not need to be administered to all students at the same time. It can be administered to small groups of students at different times and on different days. Schools have flexibility in determining when students complete the OSSLT within the administration window. The OSSLT can be administered by teachers in class to students using a variety of school devices that use Windows and/or Mac operating systems, including Macs, Chromebooks, desktops, laptops, iPads and Android tablets. The assessment consists of two sessions. Both sessions (Session A and Session B) can be completed one after the other, either back-to-back with a break in between, or on two different dates and times.
All students will have access to a Practice Test to familiarize themselves with the overall appearance and features of the online OSSLT. Support materials are available for all students once they log in to the online OSSLT. A set of accessibility tools, located in the student toolbar, is available for every student taking the OSSLT and includes the following tools:
- A help menu
- A text-to-speech function that reads the text on the screen out loud
- Zoom in and zoom out capabilities
- A line reader that helps students focus on one line of text at a time
- A high-contrast view
- Annotation tools (highlighter, line, eraser) and rough notes
All students will also have access to virtual breathing exercises, reminders of test-taking strategies and a minds-on activity to help them as they launch into the modernized OSSLT. School administrators and teachers can create a plan for any students who require the following:
- Additional time
- A quiet, individual and/or small group setting
- Preferential seating
- Prompts (for students who are off task)
Accommodations for each student with special education needs must be consistent with assessment accommodations on the student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) and can include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Extended periodic supervised breaks
- Sign language or an oral interpreter
- A Unified English Braille version of the test with or without the audio version
- Additional assistive technology
- Verbatim scribing of answers
The e-assessment system has a built-in text-to-speech function. The following is a list of third-party software that are also supported by the e-assessment platform:
- Read&Write for Google Chrome
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking
- Kurzweil 3000
- NVDA Screen Reader
Provisions for English-language learners can include the following:
- Extended periodic supervised breaks
The following alternative formats of the test have been created for students with special education needs, including students with a visual impairment:
- A Unified English Braille version of the test (contracted or uncontracted)
- MP3s with audio descriptions
- An alternative version of the test in the e-assessment system with audio descriptions
Results will be released after the open-response questions have been scored. An Individual Student Report will be generated for students after the scoring of the test.
The OSSLT Practice Test is available on the EQAO website. EQAO will be hosting a series of live webcasts for teachers, administrators, literacy leads and board IT staff to register.
The EQAO Outreach team will also offer additional support to boards and schools. Please contact EQAO for additional information.
OSSLT: Reporting
Scoring Activities
- Scoring Window: a specific period (with predefined start and end dates) during which the e-assessment scoring system is available for training and scoring.
- Item: a question or task that appears on an assessment or test.
- Response: a student’s response to an item on an assessment or test.
- Training Module: material for the training session, which includes an introductory video, a scoring guide, training responses, a practice test and a qualifying test.
- Practice Test: a test that scorers complete as part of the training module, used to prepare scorers for the qualifying test.
- Qualifying Test: a test used to assess a scorer’s ability to score student responses accurately.
- Batch: a predefined number of student responses to a test question. (Each batch is expected to take an average of one hour to score.)
- Partial Batch: a batch that is partially scored, or a batch with a partial number of responses to be scored, which was automatically assigned by the system.
- Rolling Batch: a set number of scored batches used to calculate the scorer’s average validity on those batches. (This average is used to compare against the minimum validity threshold.)
- Expert Scorer: an experienced scorer with high validity.
- Validity: the measure of a scorer’s accuracy assessed by examining the agreement between the scores assigned by the scorer and those assigned by expert scorers. The following indices are computed: percentage of exact agreement, percentage of exact-plus-adjacent agreement, percentage of adjacent-low agreement and percentage of adjacent-high agreement.
- Adjacent: a difference of one score code between the score assigned to a certain response by the scorer and that assigned by the expert scorers.
- Adjacent-low: the score assigned to a certain response by a scorer is one score code below the score assigned by the expert scorers.
- Adjacent-high: the score assigned to a certain response by a scorer is one score code above the score given by the expert scorers.
- Non-adjacent: the difference between the score assigned to a certain response by a scorer and that assigned by the expert scorers is greater than one score code.
- Exact Agreement: the score assigned to a certain response by the scorer and the expert scorers is the same.
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- Cumulative Exact Validity Percentage: the total percentage of validity responses scored that match the score preassigned.
- Cumulative Exact + Adjacent Validity Percentage: the percentage of validity responses scored that are either a match with the score given by the expert scorers or are one score code different (higher or lower).
- Validity Response: a response that matches the anchors in the corresponding scoring guide.
- Average Rolling Validity: the average validity achieved on a rolling batch. Average rolling validity is calculated and made available only when the pre-determined number of validity items are scored. (This average is used for comparison against the minimum validity threshold, which is required for scorers to be able to score).
- Minimum Validity Threshold: the minimum average rolling validity required to continue to score without retraining.
- Cumulative Validity Incentive Threshold: the minimum cumulative exact and cumulative exact + adjacent validity percentage required to receive incentive pay.
Unfortunately, the task you have been offered cannot be changed.
Do not accept an invitation to score until you can commit to the scoring opportunity.
You need to update your proof of enrolment in each year of your program. Once you receive your Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) certificate and your information is on the OCT website, you will need to update your current educator role and enter the OCT number in your EQAO profile. Ensure that the first name and last name in your EQAO profile matches those on the OCT website.
Your EQAO profile may not be up to date, or your qualifications and experience may not have met the requirements of the scoring position—or, simply, there may not be any more scoring opportunities available at the moment.
A partially scored batch or a fully scored batch with a partial number of responses to be scored is pro-rated according to the percentage completed. For example, if you score a batch that contains only half the number of responses that are in a full batch, you will see 0.5 on your report.
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