The ERC is collaborating with the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) to extend the Post-Primary Assessment and Diagnosis-English (PPAD-E) standardised test of literacy in English beyond First Year, to Third Year students. This Standardisation study will be carried out in Autumn 2025. PPAD-E is a screening and diagnostic tool used to assess students’ skills in English literacy.
Current and Future Developments
PPAD-E is currently available to all post-primary schools for use with First Year students. The 2025 Standardisation aims to extend this to Third Years, with a view to establishing norms for this year group. A pilot study amongst Third Years was successfully carried out in the Autumn of 2024 to assess whether the questions ‘worked’ in the way we hoped. Following on from the pilot, a few adjustments were made to PPAD-E for Third Years. Data from the Standardisation will be analysed to create norms for the Third-Year student population.
Contact: ppad-e@erc.ie
The need for PPAD-E
The PPAD-E has been developed by NEPS in direct response to needs identified by schools.
Previously, tests of English literacy in use in post-primary schools were typically tests with UK or US norms. These tests have a number of limitations, such as their high cost, cultural inappropriateness, limited utility/narrow focus, time consuming nature (many individually administered), poor ability to differentiate between very weak or very able readers, and inappropriate age ceilings.
NEPS psychologists, through their ongoing work in schools, were aware that schools wanted a tool which is cost-effective, easy to administer and score, and can be used for a range of purposes. The PPAD-E is used currently with First Year students, and standardisation of the test for Third Year students is currently underway. Once the PPAD-E is standardised for Third Years, it will be possible to use the test at two key stages in the Junior Cycle in post-primary schools. It is a screening and diagnostic tool that assesses literacy skills consisting of five subtests. Four out of the five subtests are group administered, making the test less time consuming.
Design of the PPAD-E
The complete test package includes five subtests:
- Word reading
- Spelling
- Reading speed
- Reading comprehension
- Writing samples.
All but the Word Reading test are group-administered (Word Reading is individually administered). The assessment requires an hour to administer, plus 3-4 minutes per student for the Word Reading test.
Purposes and benefits of the PPAD-E
The test is:
- culturally appropriate and tailored to the Irish context
- designed for use by teachers
- accompanied by tools and materials that enable test administration, scoring and interpretation of test results for individual students
- linked to evidence-based interventions
- suitable for considering eligibility for an exemption from Irish
- helpful for screening for difficulties
- useful in diagnostic assessment, monitoring and evaluating progress
- helpful in providing data for RACE/DARE, and
- useful in establishing and reviewing standards.
The PPAD-E Standardisation study 2025
A Standardisation study to establish norms for Third Year students will be carried out in autumn 2025. The ERC has selected a nationally representative sample of 85 post-primary schools for testing. In each selected school, one Third Year class is chosen at random to take part (yielding approximately 2500 participants). Teachers will administer the assessment with support from other school staff and the ERC during autumn, 2025. After the Standardisation study results will be reported .to schools in spring 2026.
GDPR
The work of NEPS and the ERC is supported by a Data Processor Agreement, with all appropriate information and safeguards under GDPR in place.
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