What does it mean if my results are the same year to year?
Sometimes results at the school or region level remain consistent year over year, as we are usually looking at large sample sizes (a large number of students who completed the survey). Since the sample sizes are large, there would have to be a large difference in how students were responding in order to see change. When this happens, you can ‘dig deeper’ to see if there are differences in results between various groups of students. It is important to notice the consistency, but then to delve into your interactive charts for more details.
It is important to apply drill-downs when looking at ‘consistent’ results - Although the aggregate, or overall results may be consistent, there may be fluctuations when looking at grade or sex drill-downs, year to year.
For example, the mean results for 'values schooling outcomes' looks fairly consistent between 2016 and 2017. It also looks consistent when looking at the sex breakdown. However, when looking at grade and grade and sex breakdown, we can see that there is a drop in grade 8 and 9 for both males and females. Also, there is an increase in grade 11 females from 2016 to 2017.
How can the results be changed in the next survey? - Can the results be raised or lowered via interventions or other changes in the school, or are the results where you want them to be? For example, if participation in sports results are consistent year over year at around 20%, do you want to set a goal to increase participation for the following years?
Cohorts of schools (if applicable) - It may be beneficial to look certain cohorts of schools - for example, are there certain schools that have implemented a new program and other schools that haven’t? These schools could be grouped when using the roll-up interactive charts and comparisons could be made.
Even consistent data provides information - there does not need to be a change in the results for there to be a story. The story can be that the district has remained fairly constant in terms of results for certain measures, year over year.