What is IDEAS+?
IDEAS stands for Interactive Data Exploration and Analysis Software. It allows you to
explore your ASPECTS results in more detail, for example to analyse more detailed
breakdowns of the scores, compare results for groups of pupils, and produce many
customised charts and tables.
This free software is downloaded from the PIPS+ website. To run, it needs Microsoft Excel
97 or later (although some advanced features may not be available using earlier versions
of Excel).
How to access IDEAS+
Download the program from the PIPS+ website as follows:
1. Go online to http://www.aspectsproject.org/plus and enter your username and
password
2. Select IDEAS+ Software from the Results/Analysis menu
3. Scroll down to the table listing your options and click the icon 'choose save' (not
'open')
How to use the IDEAS+ software
Once you have downloaded the program, it can be opened just like any other Excel file.
Double click on it, and if it offers the option to enable/disable macros. Click on enable
macros . Note that the program needs macros to run. If you get a warning message saying
that macros are disabled, the program will not work.
When you have finished using IDEAS, just close Excel as usual. The program will offer to
save the current settings. Select Yes to save any custom groups or other settings for
future use.
How to show a chart or table
The program is operated using a toolbar:
By default, this toolbar automatically appears at the top of the screen, just above the
ASPECTS logo.
To show the results for your pupils, click on Show Chart/Table . This presents a list of
available chart types.
You may click on the picture to produce the listed type of table or chart, use the drop-down
menu to select a different preset chart or table, or click on the Customise arrow to set up
a chart or table exactly as you want it. Note that if you find one particular customised chart
particularly useful you can add it to your list of preset charts. The following pages explain
the features of IDEAS+ for ASPECTS in more detail and include information on how to
produce particular charts.
Selecting Pupils
By default, when you start the program after downloading it, the tables and charts show
the results for all pupils in the most recent academic year. However, the program contains
all your ASPECTS data and you can select any group of pupils to view. To change which
pupils are shown, click Filter/Highlight Pupils on the toolbar to show the Filter menu.
If you want to select an individual class for this academic year, click on the drop-down
arrow next to No selection and choose Class name . Choose a class or classes from the
list and click OK. If you want to select more than one class you can hold down ctrl or shift
to multi-select.
You can continue to filter to smaller and smaller groups by adding up to six filter criteria in
the same way. To remove a filter, click the appropriate Drop filter button.
Highlighting a group
Groups of pupils can be highlighted to aid comparison. For example, you can highlight
each academic year, each class, or boys and girls. Each group will then be shown in a
different colour.
Highlighting is carried out in the same way as filtering. Click on Filter/Highlight Pupils on
the toolbar, click on the drop-down arrow next to Highlight and choose one of the criteria.
Then select one or more groups to highlight. To remove the highlight, click the Drop
highlight button which appears to the right of the highlight box.
Custom groups of pupils
By default you can select pupils based on academic year, class name, sex, full name, date
of birth, and assessment date, age, version and term for first and final assessments.
However, sometimes you may want to filter or highlight children based on some other
criteria, such as preferred language or full/part time. This can be done by setting up
custom groups.
To set up a custom group, click on Edit Custom Groups on the toolbar. From here you can
add or remove custom groups, and see how many pupils are in each group. For example,
a custom group Attendance has been set up below with two possible values, full time
and part time .
Note that values other than a simple yes or no are permissible you do not need to set
up a group called full time for some children and a different group called part time for
others. If more detail than full/part time would be useful, you can set up the custom group
accordingly. It really is just a matter of deciding what filtering or highlighting is useful for
you.
Features of IDEAS+
Available charts and tables
Click on Show Chart/Table to bring up the menu.
To produce a table or scatterplot using the current settings, just click on the large
thumbnails. Alternatively, you can select a different table or scatterplot from the list of
presets. Finally, you can click on the Customise button for much finer control over what is
displayed.
Standard tables
There are six standard tables available:
Standard Start scoresproduce a table similar to the normal start of year printed
feedback. It shows each pupil s name, age, language and maths score and motor
development score from the start of the year.
Standard End scoresproduce a table similar to the normal end of year printed
feedback. It shows each pupil s name, age, language and maths score and motor
development score from both the start and end of the year.
Language & Maths breakdownpresents a more detailed breakdown of the
language and maths component at the start of the year. It includes the pupil s
name, age and total language and maths score, together with a detailed breakdown
of question types. It also includes the averages for the whole group and any
highlighted groups.
Motor development breakdownpresents a more detailed breakdown of the motor
development component at the start of the year.
PSED breakdownpresents a more detailed breakdown of the Personal, Social and
Emotional Development component at the start of the year.
Spreadsheetshows the pupil s results as a standard Excel spreadsheet. This can
be useful if you want to copy the results to another program for further analysis.
Standard scatterplots
There are four standard scatterplots available:
Standard Start scoresproduce a scatterplot similar to the normal start of year
printed feedback. The main difference is, whereas the printed feedback shows at
most 15 pupils per page, all pupils appear on the sheet together.
Standard Progress scoresproduce a scatterplot similar to the normal end of year
printed feedback. The main difference is, whereas the printed feedback shows at
most 15 pupils per page, all pupils appear on the sheet together.
Summary Start scoressummarise the data for the whole group (or each
highlighted group) for ease of comparison between larger groups. The graph shows
the average score and age for each group, and a shaded area containing 95% of
the pupils.
Summary Progress scoressummarise the data for the whole group (or each
highlighted group) for ease of comparison between larger groups. The graph shows
the average score and age for each group, and a shaded area containing 95% of
the pupils. An example is given below.
Customs settings: tables
If you click on the Customise button for the tables, you can change all the custom
settings.
You can select from the list of presets, see Using Presets below. When you click Done
the table will be displayed according to the following settings:
General table settings: this determines the overall structure of the data shown. If Show
pupil results is ticked, you will get results for each pupil. If Show group averages it ticked,
you will get average scores for the whole group and for each highlighted group. You can
have either or both of these ticked. You can also decide whether to show the pupil IDs (i.e.
the UPN), whether the pupils did text or CD, and whether the start or end scores (or both)
are shown.
Sorting: the tables are normally sorted by pupil name. Alternatively, you can sort by date
of birth, date of assessment, age on assessment or the score for start or end of year.
When sorting by name you can choose whether to sort by first name or surname by ticking
the appropriate box. You can also sort first by the highlighting group: if you were
highlighting boys and girls, this would group all the boys together on the table, then all the
girls.
Breakdown of scores shown: you can show the language and maths, motor
development or PSED scores on the tables. For language and maths or motor
development you can include a detailed breakdown of the scores (this is the only option for
PSED), and for motor development you can also flag up which pupils did all sections of the
test.
Custom settings: scatterplots
If you click on the Customise button for the scatterplots, you can change all the custom
settings.
You can select from the list of presets, see Using Presets below. When you click Done
the scatterplot will be displayed according to the following settings:
General graph options: you can select whether to show start assessments, end
assessments, or both. With both, you can choose between plotting all pupils (including
those with only a start or end), or only pupils with matched data. You can vary the markers
for start and end to make the graph easier to read. The shaded background is optional:
you can include the background or leave it out, and if you include it you can make it paler
(particularly useful for the summary charts). The pupil and group labels can be shown in
black for ease of reading. You can also specify the age and score range shown -
particularly useful if you have some pupils who were too old or too young to appear on the
standard graph, or if you want to focus on the younger pupils at the start of the year.
Pupil data: you can show a point for each pupil, for the group averages, or both. This
section controls what is shown for each pupil. If you are showing pupils, you can optionally
join the start and end assessments with a line. You can also decide what labels are
shown. Shortest unique name is recommended as it uniquely marks each child by
deciding how much of the name to include whilst leaving the most space on the graph. For
example, Fred Smith and Joe Bloggs would appear as Fred and Joe , Fred Smith and
Fred Bloggs would appear as Fred S and Fred B , and Fred Brown and Fred Bloggs
would be named in full.
Summary data: this determines whether the data is summarised on the graph. You can
optionally label the data point, join up starts and ends with lines, and shade the extent of
the data.
Custom settings: general
There are additional general settings which affect all charts and tables:
You can select from the list of presets, see Using Presets below.
Anonymity: you may want to analyse your results, but not show the children s names.
You can select Hide the pupil names to do this. There may be times (e.g. parents visits)
where you want to hide almost all the names, but leave some on. You can do this by
selecting Don t hide highlighted pupils and then highlighting an individual pupil in
Filter/Highlight Pupils .
Tips: help is provided at various points of the program. The first time you see a new menu,
the office assistant will tell you how to use it. Whilst this may be helpful at first, regular
users will find these annoying. With each tip you can select Don't show me this again .
Alternatively you can un-tick the Show Tips to stop all tips. If you want to reset it to show
them all, tick Show Tips .
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