This article on InnerOrbit's Diagnostic Assessments address:

Diagnostic Assessments on InnerOrbit are ready-to-use assessments designed to activate student prior knowledge and identify gaps or misconceptions around a single NGSS standard, known as a performance expectation (PE).

These short assessments contain 1-dimensional questions that assess Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) only.

However, questions assess both prior AND grade-level content knowledge, intentionally leveraging each PE’s “articulation of DCIs across grade-bands”

Diagnostics are best used prior to instruction; before a lesson or unit has begun.

They do NOT assess mastery of NGSS PEs, but are meant to guide the pacing and content of upcoming lessons

Additionally, they can provide baseline data from which growth can be measured.

PreMade Diagnostics can be used as a stand-alone diagnostic for a single standard or lesson, or combined to form comprehensive beginning-of-unit assessments around multiple PEs.

2. From the “Matching Pre-Made Assessments” Section, select the tile with the "Diagnostic" label.

3. You can then either:

a. Select “Assign All Questions” using the green button

b. Scroll down and select specific questions using the "Add to Quiz" button (with the option to modify the question.)

4. After you make your selections, click "View Your Assessment"on the upper right corner.

5. Name and save your assessment before adding additional questions if you wish.

Student data is available as soon as your students have completed the assessments.

This data can be used to identify gaps in knowledge and misconceptions to make informed instructional decisions.

Prior Knowledge Data

InnerOrbit’s PreMade Diagnostics only assess Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) from the previous grade band (prior knowledge) and from the grade-level standard (core content).

Some standards do not have connected standards in the previous grade band.

Because of this, some prior knowledge questions do not have any dimensional tagging.

Data from these questions can still be seen in the Assignment Report, but will not have data in the Dimensions Report.

Looking for Growth

When comparing growth between a DCI-only diagnostic assessment and another assessment that includes 2D/3D questions, it's important to consider the rigor of the questions.

Dimensional data are derived from tags assigned to each question. In assessments with rigorous 2D/3D questions, the DCI student data will reflect the rigor of those questions.

Conversely, in assessments with only 1D questions (such as a PreMade diagnostic), the DCI data will reflect less rigorous questions.

This could potentially result in a perceived decline in your DCI data when comparing a diagnostic assessment to a subsequent one.

If you want a larger assessment for an entire grade or course, we recommend using InnerOrbit’s PreMade Inventories!

Specifically, use an Inventory from a prior grade/course (ex: High School Biology teachers can use the Middle School Life Science Inventory).

Inventories will assess all standards in a grade/course, including Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) and Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs).

Please note that this is different from the PreMade Diagnostics, which ONLY assess Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs)