Another Way to Interact with MCA Released and Sampler Items (JLabs)

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Jefferson Labs (JLabs) has worked with Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to input several released and sampler items into their practice test engine. To try it out, click hereor type “Jefferson Labs Minnesota” in your search engine. One of the unique advantages of this tool is that test takers receive immediate item-by-item feedback on their answer selections.

JLabs’ main screen for the MCA is shown below (https://education.jlab.org/mca/).

Students select the number of questions they want to attempt, 5, 10, or 20, and then begin the test. Students get immediate results after each question when a message such as “Sorry, that isn’t right…” or “Correct!” appears, followed by additional information. The word “Correct!” is shown above the question and the correct answer is shown below, as seen in the screen shot below.

After the student has finished the test, they can select the green button that says “All Done! How Did I Do?” to get the recovery code. Students must keep track of this number!This code can then be put into the webpage activated by the blue button “View One of My Old Tests” on the JLabs main screen for the MCA. On this page, the Results Recovery Utility tool allows the student and/or teacher to put in a CAPTCHA code as well as the recovery code assigned to the test results when the test was completed. A portion of this webpage is shown below.

If the recovery code is lost it cannot be recovered (not even by JLabs).The test will need to be taken again.

When the student or teacher puts in the recovery code, the student’s score can be seen. On the score page, there is a column titled “Review?” where the explanations of how to answer the questions will belocated. We, at MDE, will be working on this over the summer and plan to have all questions uploaded into the system by the start of the 2018-2019 school year.

Some things to note about this tool:
1. Only math items are currently available on JLabs.
2. The explanations will be available in the fall of 2018.
3. These “score reports” are only available for review for two weeks and are then erased.
4. The column titled “%*” is the percentage of test takers who answered this question correctly over the last month, from the date the test was taken.
5. The students can email their results directly from this view to whomever is interested.
6. The technology-enhanced (TE) released and sampler items are notsupported by JLabs at this time, so students will only see multiple-choice items. To see the MCA sampler TE items, please go to the online item sampler. For the released TE items, go to the released item bank on MDE’s website.
7. If teachers or students would like to include non-Minnesota math items on the test, they may include released items from the Commonwealth of Virginia. This can be done by selecting the grade and using the yellow button titled “Select Additional Options” on JLabs home page site for the MCA. From here, you can include the VADOE Released Questions and then click through the options. Please keep in mind that the VA standards are not the same as the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standardsand mayinclude content that is found in different grades levels.

We are truly appreciative that JLabs has allowed the addition of Minnesota MCA items in their test engine. Please take time to get to know the amazing tool that JLabs has created. We believe this tool will be useful for students to use for practice and also for receiving item-by-item feedback on how they are performing on the items.

As always, please contact Angela or Ann with any comments or questions.

Angela Hochstetter – Math Assessment Specialist (angela.hochstetter@state.mn.us)

Ann Page – Math Assessment Specialist (ann.page@state.mn.us)