Trial User Student Growth
A Note from Test Innovators’ CEO, Edan Shahar
To date, students have answered over 20 million questions on the Test Innovators platform. Now, we are diving into this data to understand how students learn and to help them achieve their academic and test-taking goals.
Our new Data Science team will be providing actionable analysis and creating cutting-edge features and tools to help our students, our schools, and our tutoring partners better understand the learning process.
We’re thrilled for what’s coming down the pipe… stay tuned.
Trial User Improvements
We know that students use our platform to improve their test scores, but we wanted to know exactly how much they improve. We started by looking at student percentiles from test to test to capture the trajectory of student performance.
Figure 1 depicts the average increase in student percentile compared to the percentile score achieved on the first practice test. All students in this analysis were prior trial users. The light blue bar represents the increase in percentile after the second practice test and the dark blue bar represents the increase in percentile after the sixth practice test. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval.
We offer a free trial to show users the features and functionality of the platform and to give them an insight into the types of questions on the test. Students who use the Test Innovators platform after completing the trial see a 13% percentile increase after just the second practice test. Students who complete our Valedictorian package see a 28% percentile increase.
Students who complete the trial not only observe statistically significant growth from test-to-test, they also have higher average percentiles compared to students who do not take advantage of the trial. This suggests the trial gives students a ‘head-start’ by acclimating them to online tests, potentially reducing the learning curve for the first practice test.
Figure 2 shows average achieved percentiles on each test (1-6). We observe a statistically significant increase after each test iteration for students who did not complete trials. Test 1-2 and 2-6 proved statistically significant for trial students. The values in each bar correspond to the percent increase in percentile relative to the first exam (far-left bar). Note: Higher percentage increase in student growth for non-trial students attributed to lower initial score.
Across our platform, students exhibit significant increases in test percentile after every practice test. We see that our students don’t just improve by using our platform, they improve consistently over time, further reinforcing that practice makes perfect. Based on this information, we stand by our recommendation for students to complete all of the practice tests available to them. However, if a student does not have time to take all of the practice tests, completing just two practice tests has a significantly positive impact on scores.
A Note from Test Innovators’ Data Scientist, Sean Coffinger
Average percent increases in student percentiles were derived by comparing quantitative SSAT student percentiles from practice test 1 to practice tests 2 and 6, respectively, and observing percent increases in the paired scores. Error bars represent 95% CI. All percentile increases between test iterations were statistically significant (alpha = .01). Percent increase is relative to initial practice test percentile and describes the average percent increase in section percentile. Percentiles are initially derived from raw scores.
To see our data pertaining to SSAT students, visit our SSAT Student Growth Percentiles page.
To see our data pertaining to ISEE students, visit our ISEE Student Growth Percentiles page.
