The Pre/Post Assessment Comparison report lets you pick two assessments — a "before" and an "after" — and see, side by side, how your students' performance changed between them. It's designed for school and district admins who want a quick read on growth across a pair of formatives.
Note: Pre/Post is an admin-only report. You'll only see it if you have an admin role.
What is the Pre/Post comparison?
Instead of opening two separate reports and comparing them by hand, Pre/Post puts both assessments in one view and does the comparison for you. You choose a pre assessment and a post assessment, run the report, and Formative shows two charts: one for overall performance and one for growth on the standards the two assessments share.
The Data You Can Pull & Insights You Can Gain
This report gives administrators a clear read on academic progress over time, allowing you to pull:
Overall Performance Data: Average scores and student distribution across your school's custom performance bands.
Standards Growth Data: Average percentage-point growth on the specific standards shared between the two assessments.
Targeted Demographic Data: Performance broken down by specific schools or individual teachers using built-in filters.
By reviewing this data, administrators can quickly gauge whether instructional strategies between the pre and post assessments successfully drove student growth. It reveals the "big picture" of overall improvement, while the standards view highlights exactly which concepts students mastered and which ones still require additional support or curriculum adjustments.
Find the Pre/Post report
From the left-side Admin Tools navigation, go to Reports.
Select the Pre/Post tab. You'll find it just to the right of Common Assessments.
Run a comparison
In the Pre assessment picker, search for and select the assessment students took first.
In the Post assessment picker, search for and select the assessment students took later.
Select 'Run report'.
Formative generates the comparison and displays your results below. You can change either assessment and run the report again at any time.
Tip: Pick two assessments that cover the same standards. The growth chart compares the standards the two assessments have in common — if they don't share any, that chart won't have anything to plot.
Use School and Teacher Filters / Drill-Downs
To gain more specific insights, you can refine your report view using the filters available at the top of the report:
School Filter: District administrators can drill down into specific school sites to see how different campuses are performing on the exact same pair of assessments. This helps identify which schools might need additional resources or support.
Teacher Filter: Administrators can filter the data by individual instructors to see how specific classrooms progressed.
Combining these drill-downs allows you to pinpoint highly specific data—such as comparing how a particular standard grew in one school versus another, or isolating the data of a specific grade-level team.
Understanding your results
Once the report runs, you'll see two charts.
Overall performance
This chart compares the two assessments side by side:
There's one bar for your pre assessment and one bar for your post assessment.
Each bar breaks down how students were distributed across performance bands (the score ranges your school uses, from lower to higher).
Each assessment also shows its average score, so you can see at a glance whether the class average moved up.
Hover any bar to see the exact number of students in each band, along with the average score for that assessment.
In short: this is the "big picture" view — did overall performance improve from the pre to the post assessment?
Average per-student growth on standards
This chart zooms in on the individual standards the two assessments share. Each dot represents one standard:
A dot's left-to-right position shows the average growth students made on that standard, in percentage points — the farther right, the more growth.
A dashed vertical line marks the overall average growth across all standards, so you can quickly spot which standards grew more or less than average.
Hover a dot to see the standard, its average growth, and the number of students.
Hover a standard code along the left edge to read that standard's full description.
In short: this is the "which standards moved" view — it helps you see where students grew the most and where they may still need support.
Best Practices for Pre/Post Comparisons
Align Your Assessments: Because the growth chart relies on common standards, ensure both the pre and post assessments heavily assess the exact same set of standards to get the most valuable data.
Ensure Consistent Testing Conditions: To get an accurate measure of growth, encourage teachers to administer the pre and post assessments under similar conditions (e.g., time limits, available resources).
Leverage the Teacher Filter for Collaboration: Use the Teacher drill-down to identify educators whose students showed exceptional growth on specific standards. Encourage them to share their successful instructional strategies with their Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) or grade-level teams.
Identify Curriculum Gaps: Use the "Average per-student growth on standards" chart to spot standards with low or negative growth across multiple schools or teachers. Use this insight to drive targeted district-wide curriculum adjustments or direct professional development.
Good to know
If the two assessments don't share any standards, the growth chart shows a short message instead of dots — pick a pair that shares standards to see growth.
If neither assessment has graded student responses yet, the report will let you know there's no data to compare. Try a different pair.