Pivot Table for Large Assessment Files: An ITRT Recipe

When you have a lot of data to sort through, a pivot table may be your solution. 

This recipe would be best for administrators or coaches who have access to building/grade level data, since a typical classroom teacher may not have hundreds of rows of data, which is the value of a pivot table.

Ingredients:

• Google Sheet of data 
• (If in Excel, open in Sheets)
• Pivot Table

Skill Level/Time required:

• Beginner - I promise that pivot tables sound scarier than they are.
• 10-15 minutes

Procedure:

1. Open your Sheet of data. 
2. Along the menu bar, go to Data --> Pivot Table. This will create a new tab on your sheet and open the Pivot Table Editor menu.
3. In Rows, Add the data you want to sort. In this example, I used 'Item Description' so we could see all the type of questions. 
4. In Columns, Add the 'qualifiers' that you want to count by. In this example, I used 'Correct/Incorrect,' but you can have multiple columns that will nest in each other. 
5. In Values, use the same value as in Columns. Be sure it is set to 'COUNTA.'

Implementing:

1. Use this Pivot table to see areas of strength and weakness. 
2. Add in a column with a formula to calculate the percentage correct or incorrect to make it easier.

Video directions: