We aim to predict whether a primary school student will perform in the `below standard' band of a standardized test based on a set of individual, school-level, and family-level observables . We exploit a data set containing test performance on the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN); a test given annually to all Australian primary school students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Students who perform in the `below standard' band constitute approximately 3\% of the sample, with the remainder performing at or above standard, requiring that a proposed classifier be robust to imbalanced classes. Observations for students in grades 5, 7, and 9 contain data on previous achievement in NAPLAN. We separate the analysis into students in grade 5 and above, for which previous achievement may be used as a predictor; and students in grade 3, which must rely on family and school-level predictors only. On each subset of the data, we train and compare a set of classifiers in order to predict below standard performance in reading and numeracy learning areas respectively. The best classifiers for grades 5 and above achieve an area under the ROC curve of approximately 95\%, and for grade 3 achieve an AUC of approximately 80\%. Our results suggest that it is feasible for schools to  screen a large number of students for their riskof obtaining below standard achievement a full two years before they are identified as achieving below standard on their next NAPLAN test .
We aim to predict whether a primary school student will perform in the `below standard' band of a national standardized test . We exploit a data set containing test performance on the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN); a test given annually to all Australian school students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. We separate the analysis into students in grade 5 and above, for which previous achievement may be used as a predictor; and students in grade 3, which must rely on family- and school-level predictors only. We train and compare a set of classifiers for reading and numeracy learning areas respectively. The classifiers achieve good predictive power in terms of area under the ROC curve , suggesting that it is feasible for schools to more accurately screen a large number of students for academic risk .
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standardized test based on a set of individual, school-level, and family-level observables
national standardized test
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primary
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Students who perform in the `below standard' band constitute approximately 3\% of the sample, with the remainder performing at or above standard, requiring that a proposed classifier be robust to imbalanced classes. Observations for students in grades 5, 7, and 9 contain data on previous achievement in NAPLAN.
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family
family-
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On each subset of the data, we
We
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in order to predict below standard performance in
for
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best classifiers for grades 5 and above achieve an
classifiers achieve good predictive power in terms of
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of approximately 95\%, and for grade 3 achieve an AUC of approximately 80\%. Our results suggest
, suggesting
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more accurately
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their riskof obtaining below standard achievement a full two years before they are identified as achieving below standard on their next NAPLAN test
academic risk