Data and Insights Frequently Asked Questions

Table of Contents

Overview

What are the DESSA T-score ranges, and how do I interpret scores?

How do I access DESSA reports?

How do I view student goals, challenges, and progress?

What amount of change should be expected in a student’s full DESSA and DESSA-mini results?

Can the DESSA-mini/DESSA-HSE mini be used to track progress in the DESSA Competencies?

What is individual item analysis, and how is it used?

What are some ways I can look at outcomes using the DESSA-mini?

What advice can you provide for programs serving children with social and emotional disabilities when interpreting DESSA results?

Are multiple ratings for the same student aggregated, averaged, or combined?

Overview

The following are 9 Frequently Asked Questions related to options available under the Data and Insights menu of the DESSA System Educator Portal. 

Q: What are the DESSA T-score ranges, and how do I interpret scores?

A: Scores on the DESSA assessments are reported in the following ranges:

• Strength range: T-score of 60 and above
• Typical range: T-score of 41 to 59
• Need for Instruction range: T-score of 40 or below

For more information on interpreting T-scores, see What are the DESSA T-score Ranges and How do I Interpret Scores?

Q: How do I access DESSA reports?

A: Reports can be found by clicking on the Data and Insights tab at the top of the screen. A variety of graphs and score breakdowns can be found directly within the Educator Portal, and you are also able to export rating reports as a .csv file in order to create more customized reports. To see more details about the individual report types, please see How do I access DESSA reports?

Q: How do I view student goals, challenges, and progress?

A: As a Program Administrator, Site Leader, or Educator, you can view student progress toward the goals and challenges that students have set for themselves after completing the DESSA Student. You can also view the progress towards completing goals and challenges, view attachments submitted by students, and leave comments on their activity.  

1. Log in to your Educator Portal account. 
2. Click the Data and Insights tab in the top menu. 
3. On the My Students report, scroll down to the search field that says Search by Student Name.
4. Enter the name of your student and click on the student name in the list below.
5. You will now see a detailed summary of the student’s DESSA data. Scroll down to see the sections titled Student Goals and Student Challenges. 
6. Here you can see the status of each goal and challenge, deadlines, challenge types, and how many tasks have been completed related to the goal or challenge. You can click on the Updates icon to view even more details. 

Q: What amount of change should be expected in a student’s full DESSA and DESSA-mini results?

A: The amount of change noted in student’s scores depends on a number of factors including how much risk and adversity the child is experiencing, the degree of fidelity in which social, emotional, and behavioral learning strategies are being implemented, the consistency of the raters, etc.  

However, in general, we typically find that a good program doing a decent job of implementing social and emotional learning activities sees on average a 3-5 T-score point change across one program year. Another good way to consider this is that a common rule of thumb in the social sciences is that a change of only 1 T-score point is negligible or meaningless. A change of 2, 3, or 4 points is a small change. A 5, 6, or 7-point change is a medium change, and any change of 8 points or more is a large change. Usually, social science and education professionals are very happy to get a medium change over a one-year period. 

Q: Can the DESSA-mini/DESSA-HSE mini be used to track progress in the DESSA Competencies?

A: No. This is not a valid practice. The purpose of the DESSA-mini and DESSA-HSE mini is to provide an overall estimation of the student’s social and emotional competence. The items on the DESSA-mini/DESSA-HSE minis are not intended to represent the DESSA constructs; they were selected to predict the Social-Emotional Composite score on the full DESSA/DESSA-HSE assessment. There is not a sufficient number of items on either the DESSA-mini or DESSA-HSE mini to accurately provide scores in the DESSA/DESSA-HSE competencies.

Q: What is individual item analysis, and how is it used?

A: Individual item analysis is a way to determine whether a child’s score on each DESSA item is within the “strength,” “typical,” or “need for instruction” range. By looking at the individual items, you can determine what specific skills the child is struggling with (i.e. “needs”) and what skills the child is really good at (i.e. “strengths”).

For more details, please see the Individual Item Analysis article.

Q: What are some ways I can look at outcomes using the DESSA-mini?

A: There are at least three ways to look at outcomes on the DESSA-mini:

1) Examine percentages: With this approach, you can examine the percentage of students falling within the strength, typical, or need for instruction ranges on their SET at pre- and post-test. In a way, this approach is the simplest and most informative. Ultimately our goal is for children to have social and emotional strengths. If we can shift the program/school as a whole towards fewer needs and more strengths, we are doing well. The limitation of this approach is that it can take advantage of small changes. That is, if a student begins with a score of 59 and ends with a score of 60, they will appear to have moved from the typical to strength range, but a 1T-score point change could be accounted for by measurement error.

2)  Use the progress monitoring approach (Cohen’s d-ratio) described in the DESSA-mini manual. This approach allows you to characterize the amount of change between successive DESSA-mini administrations as no, small, medium, or large changes using widely accepted guidelines.

3) Use inferential statistics: Standard pretest-posttest comparisons can be done using statistical software that allows you to conduct T-tests or ANOVAs. These tests are useful in determining whether a statistically significant change has occurred for groups of children, such as in a class, program, school, etc.

Q: What advice can you provide for programs serving children with social and emotional disabilities when interpreting DESSA results?

A: By definition, children with emotional disabilities, as a group, are going to have lower social and emotional competence. In our criterion validity study included in the DESSA-mini Manual, the average T-score across the four minis for a seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) sample was 39 with a standard deviation of about 6. However, it is not uncommon for students who have been identified as having social and emotional disabilities to have one or more scale scores that fall in the typical or even the strength range. These strengths are important in the planning process.

Q: Are multiple ratings for the same student aggregated, averaged, or combined?

A: Ratings from multiple raters will not aggregate results for a single student. When analyzing the results for a single student, each rating's results are listed individually on the various reports available in the Educator Portal. We do not encourage combining scores from multiple raters for a single student. Instead, we encourage that scores are used as discussion points between raters.