Adding a decile or similar formula to student results

Modified on Mon, 20 Apr at 12:14 AM

Students can be ranked by their class or subject and placed in one of ten (decile) equal parts, so that each part represents a tenth of the sample.
For the HighLow decile functions, the:

first decile includes the highest 10% of the data
fifth decile includes the highest 50% of the data
ninth decile includes the highest 90% of the data.

Note: You can use this procedure for centile and quartile functions, replacing the function in step 5 with the required function.

To add a decile formula using the Formula sub-tab of Subject Assessment Maintenance:

Search for the subject assessment. See Searching for subjects and assessment areas.
Add any other formulas that you plan to rank students on, such as a weighted average. See Adding a weighted average formula to student results.
Create a new assessment area to rank the results into deciles and store them. See Creating new subject assessment areas.

Note: While not strictly assessment areas, the calculation 'assessment areas' are used to calculate results and summarise them, as required.

The Area sub-tab of the Area tab of the Subject Assessment Maintenance window is displayed.
Select the Formula sub-tab. See Subject Assessment Maintenance - Area tab - Formula sub-tab.
The Formula sub-tab of the Area tab of the Subject Assessment Maintenance window is displayed.
Select one of the four decile formulas from the Functions field:
• @sfDecileClassHighLow
• @sfDecileClassLowHigh
• @sfDecileSubjectHighLow
• @sfDecileSubjectLowHigh.

Note: See Functions used when calculating student results.
Select the area to use in the formula. In the example shown, we selected Weighted Average (A4).
Select a suitable result type, preferably one that is numeric without a mask.
Click .
Click .
Click .
The changes to the subject assessment and its areas are saved.
Search for the results for a class of the selected subject. See Searching for student results.
The All Students tab of Student Results Maintenance window is displayed.
Click the Assessments tab.

Note: This tab is not available if your organisation does not permit some staff members to view other staff member's results.
The Assessments tab of Student Results Maintenance window is displayed with the results for each of the classes in the subject.

Note: This assumes that either @sfDecileSubjectHighLow or @sfDecileSubjectLowHigh is used. The subject-related functions are relevant for results displayed on the Assessments tab, while the class-related functions are more relevant for results displayed on the All Students tab.
Click .
Click .
The result for the class is calculated on the Student Results Maintenance window.
Click the Decile heading once or twice to sort the results as needed.
In the following @sfDecileSubjectHighLow example, the students in the top 10% are in the first decile (Decile 1).

Tip: We would use the @sfDecileSubjectLowHigh function if we were using the Ranking 'assessment area' in the formula as the top students would have the lowest rank but we want them displayed first.

In the following example, Ranking is used by the Decile function so we needed to use the @sfDecileSubjectLowHigh function.