Useful Things to Know About Interpreting AIMS/CCSA Data on the Intranet

1) As much as possible, the AIMS and the CCSA are presented in the same way.
2) Summary AIMS/CCSA data is almost always presented as % mastery (that is, the number of students in Meets&Exceeds divided by number of students tested). Data presented at the student level is usually also presented as percentages, but this is percent correct within a competency/standard.  Note that the power standard/WIPS page also uses percent correct data, not percent mastery data.  (No mastery standards exist for competency/standard level data).
3) The level below the "top" level is the competency level for Reading, the trait  level for Writing and the standard level for Math.
4) A consistent & (hopefully!) easily understandable method of number & color coding is being used to represent the four AIMS/CCSA performance levels. This method is (which is used locally, not by the state or testing company):

5) For the by-student data, there is almost always a choice of display options: color, numeric, or level.
6) The criteria for each of the categories are available at /planning/resources/aims/cutscores.asp. The number of items in each competency/standard is available at /planning/resources/aims/comppoint_front.asp.
7) Before 2001-02, competency/standard data is not available for grades 1 & 2.
8) As of 2003-04, the writing sections of the AIMS & CCSA consist of Extended Writing only.  Writing competency data should be available from previous years.
9) On the by class team AIMS/CCSA pages, the user is forced to pick a test grade level. On the non-team class pages, this is an option that is highly encouraged for mixed-grade-level-classes. Note that competency scores which do not match the headings printed will be suppressed.
10) The AIMS in 1999-2000 and 2000-01 included a Spanish version (which was a different test than the English)for grades 3/5/8. The CCSA included a Spanish version through 2001-02. This is why language is still designated.