Understanding Midterms

A midterm is a mid-year assessment that reaches TKG Analytics as raw percent-correct scores, which the platform then scores and folds into your accountability results just like any other score. This page explains what a midterm is, how it differs from a benchmark, and what a district turns on to use one. For the cut-score setup, see Midterm Ranges.

What Is a Midterm?

A midterm is a mid-year assessment that arrives as raw percent-correct data - with no performance level or scale score attached. It can come from an assessment vendor or be built by the district; what makes it a midterm is the percent-correct data, not where it came from.

Because a midterm arrives as percent correct, TKG Analytics scores it against a dedicated set of cut scores - your Midterm Ranges - rather than the performance-level logic used for the rest of your assessments. Each student's percent correct is matched to the band it falls in for that grade and subject, and that band becomes the student's performance level.

How a Midterm Differs from a Benchmark

The difference is in how TKG Analytics scores it. Each assessment type is handled differently:

A midterm is scored the same way as a custom-cut-score benchmark - against cut scores your district defines - except it always works from raw percent correct and uses its own midterm range set rather than your benchmark ranges.

Everything after scoring is the same: once a midterm has a performance level, it feeds the same impacts, projections, and reports as a benchmark.

When You Would Use One

Use a midterm when your district administers a mid-year assessment that comes as percent correct - from an assessment vendor or built in-house - and wants it scored and folded into accountability alongside your benchmarks.

Getting a Midterm Processed

A midterm is uploaded and then submitted for processing, exactly as a benchmark is, from the same three places: the checkbox above Finish in the File Uploader, the Submit for Processing button on the Assessment Definitions row, or the button on the midterm's own page. Nothing is calculated from a midterm until it is submitted.

Your Midterm Ranges have to be set up before midterm files can be uploaded at all, so that comes first either way.

See Submitting Scores for Processing for what a submission runs, why access is paused, and who is emailed when it finishes.

What You Configure to Enable It

1. Check the feature is on. Midterms are enabled for the districts that opted in. If yours has not, open a Helpdesk Ticket - the Midterm Ranges tile only appears once they are on.

2. Set your midterm ranges. In the Midterm Ranges tile, seed the percent-correct bands (from your benchmark ranges or the standard defaults) and adjust as needed.

3. Upload your midterm. Use the District Assessment uploader, where you map your own columns rather than matching a vendor layout. See Uploading Your District Assessment Files.

Once your ranges are set, an uploaded midterm is scored when you submit it.

How Midterms Feed Accountability

A midterm's performance level behaves like any other score once it is set:

• It rolls into the same Impacts for teachers, schools, and the district.
• It can serve as a prior for later periods, the same way a Spring MAAP or benchmark does - see Banked Scores for how prior scores carry forward.

On the Score Tracker, a midterm's own rows read n/a in the Scale Score column, because a midterm has no scale score. The column still appears when the tracker holds Banked Applied state scores, which keep theirs.

Because a midterm's performance level is stored when it is processed, changing your midterm ranges afterward does not re-score an already-processed midterm; see Changing the Cut Scores.

Need Help?

• Helpdesk Ticket: Helpdesk Ticket
• Website: https://tkganalytics.org