“Data Driven Instruction;” it’s all the rage, and rightfully so, but how can educators find time to analyze their data and adjust their already carefully crafted plans to meet the needs shown in the data? 

I remember as a first year teacher spending time at the end of each class manually grading exit tickets, and then writing each question number on a slip of paper and going back through student work to place a small X next to each question a student missed. This is how I created a master list that showed me the most missed questions. By the time I finished doing all of that, I had little energy left to dig into student work for misconceptions, and even less for planning an entire lesson to remedy the gap. The pile of paper exit tickets (or quizzes, or tests) often sat on my desk for weeks, mocking me for my lack of follow through. 

When students test online, many questions can be graded automatically, saving time and energy. One real game changer is Edcite’s Item Analysis Report, which puts my “first-year-teacher-master-list-of-gaps” to shame (and even better, the data is there as soon as your students finish testing!). 

With the Item Analysis Report, educators can easily view the response rates for each answer choice- and from here, being data driven is as easy as one, two, three!

Take the question above, for example. First, we identify the misconception. While the correct answer is D, 56% of students thought the answer was A, so I ask myself “Why might a student who has been in my class think that?” Here, I push myself to name the specific skill, strategy, or conceptual understanding that these students struggled with. In order to divide fractions, my students need to (1) leave the first fraction alone, (2) change the division sign to a multiplication sign, and (3) flip the second fraction (so a/b becomes b/a). Because the response frequency allows me to see that the majority of students thought 4 ½ was the answer, I can tell that the specific gap is that they did not do step 3- students multiplied 18 by ¼, instead of by 4! 

Next, I turn that misconception into an objective. Using the above example, the misconception becomes this objective: When dividing fractions, students will “flip” the second fraction. The beauty in this approach is that now, instead of re-teaching how to multiply fractions as a whole, I have an objective that targets the specific misconception many of my students need help with! My re-teach will, of course, include all three steps for dividing fractions, but our lesson will be data-driven because I’m able to focus on the specific mistake that 56% of my students made.
Step three is planning a simple re-teach that specifically targets the new objective. My students will practice dividing fractions with an emphasis on “flipping” the second fraction, and student mastery will increase!

Pro Tips: 

1. When response frequency is more evenly distributed across all answer choices (see example below), your re-teach will most likely need to focus on the entire process, because students didn’t have one misconception, but many.

1. You can click on the “__% of students (#)” in the right hand column to see exactly which students chose each answer choice. You can use this list of names to create small groups or tutoring plans!

For more information on how to use the Item Analysis Report, check out this help guide!

Note: The Item Analysis Report is a premium Edcite Schools feature. If you’d like to learn more about Edcite Schools, our premium platform for schools and districts, click here.

About the Author

Kat Strickland Rodriguez joined TFA in 2008 and worked in her placement district in the Rio Grande Valley for the next twelve years. She taught ELA before becoming an Assistant Principal of Instruction, and then earned her masters in Leadership from Columbia Teachers College before founding IDEA Harlingen College Prep in 2020. Kat transitioned to the Edcite team in 2024 and is passionate about serving educators with access to quality assessments and analytics that help adults make informed decisions so kids can excel!