Useful Data for Early Intervention
Longitudinal Growth Data Useful for Early Intervention
Schools and districts that incorporate ACT college and career readiness solutions as part of their assessment program provide greater access to higher education and increase the likelihood of student success in postsecondary education. Educators also have the ability to establish a longitudinal plan using ACT assessments, which provide unique student-level data that can be used for effective student intervention plans.Research shows that providing intervention at earlier grade levels is more successful in getting students on-track than at later grade levels.
Figure 1 and Figure 7 from the Catching Up to College and Career Readiness: The Challenge is Greater for At-Risk Students Research and Policy Brief.
A comparison of grades 8–high school with grades 4–8 provides evidence that students caught up at higher rates in the middle grades than in high school, especially in mathematics and science. The early emergence of preparation gaps and their tendency to widen over time underscore the importance of monitoring student progress in the early years.
Knowing how much students have learned from one grade to the next and how much they can be expected to learn in the future is valuable information. The growth models used as part of ACT Aspire reporting—including gain scores, student growth percentiles, ACT Readiness Benchmarks, and predicted score paths—are powerful tools you can use to understand your students’ academic progress over time.