APASO-III - Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it necessary to refine APASO-II?

How is APASO-III aligned with the enhanced School Development and Accountability (SDA) Framework?

What are the major revisions on APASO-III?

Why isn’t there an option of “Not applicable” in the scales, as appeared in the Stakeholder Survey?

APASO-III includes items relating to national identity. Are there any presumptions for these items?

Are schools required to collect data for a particular item in APASO-III? Is it necessary for schools to provide social and affective performance data to the EDB?

When conducting the External School Review, will the EDB make reference to the information from APASO-III to assess school performance?

What are the principles to be noted by schools in planning the use of APASO-III?

How should schools select the scales/subscales in APASO-III for evaluation?

Can schools amend the items in the subscales?

Which schools can use APASO-III?

Must this tool be used by student guidance teachers/master/mistress?

How do the schools make the transition from APASO-II to APASO-III? Can they keep adopting APASO-II for conducting SSE?

Will APASO-III increase the workload of teachers?

When administering the questionnaire, can teachers explain the items to their students?

When schools conduct questionnaire survey of the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes (APASO) for collecting data for the Key Performance Measures (KPM), what is the minimum percentage of students that must be randomly sampled to make the survey results acceptable?

Will the norm data be updated every year?

What are Q-score and P-score?

Can schools make a direct comparison between the data of APASO-III and that of APASO-II?

Which APASO-III reports are provided? How can schools interpret the data of these reports?

Can schools use the data obtained from APASO to assess students' performance and use it as the basis for comparing the effectiveness of different schools?

If the Q-score of a student on certain items are lower than the norm, does it mean that his/her performance on those aspects is not satisfactory?

Which data would be used for defining the socio-economic status (SES) of students’ families in APASO-III?

How to interpret the data of negatively themed subscales (e.g., the one about negative affect) of APASO-III?

Does obtaining a Q-score of 116 on a certain subscale by the school indicate that students’ performance in the relevant area is already ideal with no room for improvement?

What kind of training and support are provided by the EDB for teachers?