ACT Aspire® Periodic Assessments (classroom and interim) are designed to measure student understanding of the concepts and skills outlined in the ACT College and Career Readiness Standards and many state standards focused on college and career readiness. Periodic assessments help measure shorter–term student progress — providing supporting data for a more targeted and responsive program of instruction.
Periodic assessments are available as a perfect complement to the ACT Aspire Summative Assessments or as an independent assessment program.
ACT Aspire Interim Assessments can be administered periodically throughout the course of an academic year. They supply educators with timely and instructionally valuable data that summative assessments are not designed to provide such as information about student progress toward learning goals and objectives that can be used for adapting instruction. Interim assessments also help educators evaluate and monitor student performance, which allows time for intervention with struggling students or for enrichment for students who are excelling.
ACT Aspire Classroom Assessments can be used to assess knowledge before starting a new unit of study, to monitor student learning during ongoing instruction, and to check student outcomes or assess the need for corrective instruction. The flexible nature of these assessments allows teachers to interpret the best time for administration while providing short–term, guiding insights to student progress.
Summative Assessments, also part of the ACT Aspire Assessment System®, inform instruction and measure student progress. They are offered separately from the Periodic Assessments.