How do I get to this page?
There are two ways to get to this preference—use whichever method you prefer.
Method 1:
- Log in to Renaissance.
- On the Home page, select your initials in the upper-right corner. In the drop-down list, select Edit Preferences.
- On the Preferences page, select Star Math Audio in the Individual Student Preferences section of the page.
Method 2:
- Log in to Renaissance.
- On the Home page:
- Renaissance Next: Select Star in the sidebar, then select either Star Math or Star Spanish.
- Legacy Mode: Select either Star Math or Star Spanish.
- In the drop-down list, select Preferences.
- On the Preferences page, select Star Math Audio in the Individual Student Preferences section of the page.
Who can do this with default user permissions?
- District Level Administrators: any student in any school in the district
- School Level Administrators: any student in their own school
- Teachers: any student in one of their own classes
Use this preference for students whose reading ability is not as strong as their math ability (to the extent that not being able to read questions is affecting their score). Students should use headphones when taking a Star Math English, Star Math Algebra, Star Math Geometry, or Star Math Spanish test with audio.
For Star Math English tests, you can use the "Audio" section of the Accommodations Preference for additional audio options.
- After you select Star Math Audio on the Preferences page, use the Schools , Classes , and Students drop-down lists to choose which students to set the preference for.
- You can only select one school at a time; only the school(s) available to you will be shown in the list. (If you only have access to one school, you will not need to select it.)
- You can only select one class at a time; only the classes available to you will be shown in the list. (If you only have access to one class, you will not need to select it.)
- All of the students in the selected classes will be shown in the Students list. You can check them one at a time, or you can choose Select All at the bottom to check/uncheck all of the students at once. (If you only have access to one student, you will not need to select them.)
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For each student, check (or uncheck) the Audio enabled box after the student's name, in the Setting column .
To set the same preference for all the students shown at the same time, select Set All... , check (or uncheck) the Audio enabled box , and then select Apply to All .
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When you have finished making your changes, select Save Changes to save them (you will see a confirmation message once your changes have been saved). You can also select Undo Changes to undo your changes to the preference setting.
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Select Back at the top of the page to return to the Preferences page when you are done.
If a student is taking a test without audio enabled, pauses it, and then the preference is set to enable audio before the test is resumed, the test will still not have audio when it is resumed. The student will need to cancel the test and start a new one in order for the preference setting to take effect.
Is audio available for all items in Star Math/Star Math Spanish?
All items in the Star Math and Star Math Spanish item banks have some aspect of audio support available. The following are examples of the types of audio support provided:
- Audio support is available for items in which the question (or stem) involves reading or for items with difficult words. If a stem is a simple question, for example, "2 + 1 = ", the audio will state, "Choose the best answer."
- Labels and information in tables and graphics will not be read aloud. Text above or below a graphic or math expression that is part of the stem will have audio.
- Answer choices will be read if they contain a text that would pose significant difficulty for struggling readers.
- For items that require labeling an object, the stem may not be read aloud. That's because in some cases, use of the correct name gives students hearing the audio an advantage. For example, if a stem asks, "A (image of a dime) is the same as ________?", the audio support would simply be, "Choose the best answer."
Does using the Audio Support feature of Star Math/Star Math Spanish affect the data?
The general recommendation for Star Math and Star Math Spanish is to allow the audio support feature for students who need it, based on professional judgment. The intent in providing an accommodation is one of "differential boost": raising the performance of students with reading difficulties while not impacting the performance of students who do not have reading difficulties.
The primary purpose of providing a read-aloud accommodation on a math test is to level the playing field for students with reading difficulties. Research has found that students with reading difficulties received differential item boost when they were permitted to take math tests using read-aloud accommodations, and that the provision of the accommodation gave a better index of their math skills.
There is no evidence that the use of a read-aloud accommodation has an adverse effect on the technical adequacy of math assessments, including Star Math and Star Math Spanish. A scaled score, which is criterion-referenced, is a valid indicator of what students can do in math, even when a read-aloud accommodation is used. The audio support feature for Star Math and Star Math Spanish can be used for progress monitoring because scaled score is the primary metric for that purpose.
Because audio was not used during the norming of Star Math or Star Math Spanish, the impact of a read-aloud accommodation on norm-referenced scores is less clear. Technically, a test taken with a read-aloud accommodation constitutes a non-standard administration, and, strictly speaking, the norms may not apply. However, we expect any distortion in the norm-referenced scores from a read-aloud accommodation to be negligible. We advise that decisions regarding this should be left to educator discretion.