NAEP

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history. It serves as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts and as a result, permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time.

AIR’s work includes examining NAEP data in depth to provide insights into a wide range of topics, analyzing the achievement gaps in student performance by race/ethnicity, and maintaining a panel of experts that meets to commission and discuss research addressing validity considerations for NAEP.

Latest Work

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21 Jul 2020
Report

Reading Motivation, Reading Achievement, and Reading Achievement Gaps: Evidence from the NAEP 2015 Reading Assessment

This study aims to understand the role that reading motivation plays in middle school reading achievement (including achievement gaps) by analyzing the 2015 grade 8 NAEP reading data. The study focuses on identifying the unique effects of student-level reading motivation and aggregated school-level mean reading motivation on reading achievement.
2 Apr 2020
Report

Effects of Visual Representations and Associated Interactive Features on Student Performance on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Pilot Science Scenario-Based Tasks

As part of the transition to an entirely digitally based assessment (DBA), new types of NAEP items have begun to be developed that leverage the DBA environment to measure a wider range of knowledge and skills, including science scenario-based tasks that are the focus of this report.
30 Oct 2019
Report

NAEP Validity Studies Panel Responses to the Re-analysis of TUDA Mathematics Scores

When the 2017 NAEP Mathematics TUDA (Trial Urban District Assessment) results were reported and it appeared that student performance trends on the NAEP were not similar to student performance trends on the state assessments that were aligned to college and career ready standards, a reanalysis study was designed to explore whether content misalignment might be a possible reason for the mismatched results. This report serves as a response from the NAEP Validity Studies Panel to the analysis.
21 Aug 2019
Brief

Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales

By placing a state standard onto the NAEP scale, a NAEP equivalent score of that standard is produced, which can be compared across states. The recently released report—the seventh in the series—highlights the results from the 2016–17 school year and compares them with results from two earlier years: 2007 to show the longer-term trend and 2015 to show the immediate change.
30 Jun 2019
Report

50 Years of NAEP Use: Where NAEP Has Been and Where It Should Go Next

This paper traces the evolution of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program with an emphasis on the concurrent evolution of NAEP’s primary and secondary purposes. The most detailed treatment is given to the modern era, with the author devoting separate sections to the legislation governing NAEP, the schedule of assessments, the primary reporting mechanism, and the transition to digital assessment.
Image of three girls excitedly looking at a book
22 May 2019
Q & A

The Condition of Education: Frequently Asked Questions, Answered

Every spring, the National Center for Education Statistics releases an omnibus report, The Condition of Education. In this Q&A, Jijun Zhang, a senior research analyst at AIR who has worked on this report for a decade, explains how it is compiled, who uses it, and what it can tell us about the state of education—both today and over time.
28 Oct 2018
Report

Developing New Indices to Measure Digital Technology Access and Familiarity

As NAEP transitions from a paper-based to a digitally based assessment, the question arises: Are all children are ready for the transition—and would any of them would be disadvantaged by it? To investigate these issues, AIR developed a new set of survey items related to digital technology for the 2015 administration of the NAEP math and reading assessment.
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12 Apr 2018
Report

Weighted and Unweighted Correlation Methods for Large-Scale Educational Assessment: wCorr Formulas

This report introduces the methodology used by the wCorr R package for computing the Pearson, Spearman, polyserial, polyserial, polychoric and tetrachoric correlations, with and without weights applied. Simulation evidence is presented to show correctness of the methods, including an examination of the bias and consistency.
16 Oct 2017
Report

Identifying Text-Task-Reader Interactions Related to Item and Block Difficulty in the National Assessment for Educational Progress Reading Assessment

This study examines the nature of text-task-reader interactions in relation to student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment in order to suggest strategies that NAEP might use to select passages, develop items, and interpret data to more closely approximate the complex nature of reading comprehension.
NAEP Analysis paper report cover
24 Apr 2017
Report

Analyses Using Achievement Levels Based on Plausible Values

Achievement levels are important yardsticks in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program. In this document, we provide a detailed description of the plausible value method and demonstrate the method by replicating the analyses using SAS and comparing the replicated analysis results with those produced with NAEP Data Explorer. It is intended to provide a complete document for NAEP data users to easily adapt the methodologies with other statistical software packages such as SAS, Stata, R, and so on.
Project

NCES Data R Project - EdSurvey

The released EdSurvey Version 2.6 is designed for the analysis of national and international education data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). EdSurvey gives users the ability to process and analyze these data efficiently, taking into account their complex sample survey design and the use of plausible values. EdSurvey is an R statistical package developed by AIR, tailored to the processing and analysis of NCES large-scale education data with appropriate procedures.
13 Dec 2016
Blog Post

Taking a Page from Education to Improve Healthcare

Education has borrowed many ideas from the medical field. Now a new initiative shows the exchange isn’t just a one-way street. Bookmarking, a widely-used method for establishing student proficiency levels in major education tests—such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress—is being adapted to healthcare so patients and their families can better communicate the severity of symptoms. In this blog post Michelle Langer and Ellen Schultz explain this innovative new approach.
30 Nov 2016
Blog Post

TIMSS, PISA, and NAEP: What to Know Before Digging into the Results

In a rare occurrence, PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP assessments are releasing science and math results in the same year. Chances are the results from the various assessments won’t all tell the same story. So what do you need to know to make sense of this bumper crop of assessments? In this latest blog post, George Bohrnstedt and Fran Stancavage offer a quick run-down on how these assessments are similar and different.
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9 May 2016
Blog Post

Can We Stop Treating the NAEP as a Rorschach Test?

NAEP results are Rorschach Tests for policy wonks—a golden chance for free-association policy speculation. Small fluctuations in average scores on NAEP give rise to big explanations. Forget the quibbling over tiny differences in test scores; it’s time to rebuild schools on evidence-based, comprehensive policies that have been shown to work in the real world for all students. In this blog post, Peter Cookson says to fix inequities we need to get over our policy taste for quick fixes and silver bullets.
NAEP PISA Report cover
6 May 2016
Report

A Comparison Study of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2013 Mathematics Assessments

This study compares the mathematics frameworks and item pools used in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) with the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and vice versa. In addition to that, differences in item features between the two assessments are described.
1 May 2016
Report

A Comparison Between the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Frameworks in Science, Technology and Engineering Literacy, and Mathematics

New national standards documents have been developed over the past few years in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and are leading to major changes in state curricula and assessments. This study provides information primarily on the extent of alignment between the Next Generation Science Standards and National Assessment of Educational Progress frameworks in STEM and identifies areas of similarity and difference between them.
22 Feb 2016
Report

National Benchmarks for State Achievement Standards

State achievement standards represent how much the state expects their students to learn in order to reach various levels of academic proficiency. This report uses national benchmarking as a common metric to examine state achievement standards and compare how high these standards are compared to the National Assessment of Educational Progress achievement levels.
17 Feb 2016
Commentary

Closing the Black-White Achievement Gap: Good and Bad News

In this commentary (part of our longform essay, Applying Social Science in the Real World), George Bohrnstedt discusses what NAEP is telling us about achievement differences between Black and White students over time.
2 Feb 2016
Video

Making Research Relevant: Common Core and NAEP Alignment

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the long-time barometer of the nation's academic achievement. In this video interview, Fran Stancavage, AIR managing researcher, talks about the relationship between NAEP and the Common Core State Standards and the challenges of measuring academic progress over time as instruction changes.
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29 Jan 2016
Report

Computer Familiarity and Its Relationship to Performance in Three NAEP Digital-Based Assessments

Because NAEP is transitioning its paper-and-pencil assessments to a digital format, it is important to understand the relationship between students' familiarity with computers and their performance. This study, which analyzed three of NAEP's early digital-based assessments, found that home computer access was positively related to student performance.
10 Jan 2016
Spotlight

NAEP Data in Focus: Examining the Research

The NAEP Data in Focus working papers combine AIR’s expertise and experience not only with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), but with other large-scale assessments and survey-based longitudinal studies.
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1 Nov 2015
Blog Post

Why Did NAEP Scores Drop?

The recent release of the 2015 NAEP results by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics have been labeled “historic” by some because math scores at both Grades 4 and 8 and reading at Grade 8 have all declined, the first decline since NAEP's framework was put into place in 1990. George Bohrnstedt and Fran Stancavage examine why.
26 Oct 2015
Report

Study of the Alignment of the 2015 NAEP Mathematics Items at Grades 4 and 8 to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics

For more than four decades, the National Assessment of Educational Progress has provided the best available information about the academic achievement and educational progress of the nation’s students. The influence of the Common Core State Standards on instruction suggest the need to examine the alignment between the content covered by NAEP assessments and the content covered by the CCSS and its associated assessments. This study compares the items in the 2015 NAEP mathematics item pool and the CCSS for mathematics .
Infographic thumbnail: Black-White Achievement Gap
10 Oct 2015
Infographic

Infographic: The Black-White Achievement Gap and NAEP Scores

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "What is the Black-White achievement gap and does it change based on the composition of the student body?"
10 Oct 2015
Infographic

Infographic Series: School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap

This Education Policy Center infographic series, “School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap,” shows school segregation numbers across the U.S. and the Black-White achievement gap.

7 Oct 2015
Report

Using the National Assessment of Educational Progress as an Indicator for College and Career Preparedness

For the last several years, the National Assessment Governing Board and the National Center for Education Statistics have been exploring how the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Nation’s Report Card, can be used to assess the college and career readiness of America’s high school students. Researchers at AIR used existing administrative records from Virginia to examine the relationship between NAEP scores and a set of concrete measures of student success in college and in the labor market.
24 Sep 2015
Blog Post

Black Male Achievement Lowest in Schools with Highest Levels of Black Students

The persistent achievement gap between Black and White students has frustrated educators, parents, and policymakers for decades. In this blog post, Sami Kitmitto and George Bohrnstedt discuss a recent AIR study for the National Center for Education Statistics that highlights the potentially detrimental effect of school segregation.
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24 Sep 2015
Report

School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap

With recent concerns about the growing resegregation of schools, this analysis sheds light on the relationship between the Black-White achievement gap and the demographic makeup of schools. Accounting for factors such as socioeconomic status and other characteristics, the analysis finds that black student scores were lower, and achievement gaps wider, in mostly black schools.
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10 Sep 2015
Infographic

Infographic: The Black-White Achievement Gap and Student Populations by Locale

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "Are most schools with a majority of Black students concentrated in cities, suburbs, towns, or rural areas?"
Infographic thumbnail: Black-White Achievement Gap
10 Sep 2015
Infographic

Infographic: The Black-White Achievement Gap and Student Populations by Region

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "In which regions are the schools with a majority of Black students located?"
Infographic thumbnail: Black-White Achievement Gap
10 Sep 2015
Infographic

Infographic: The Black-White Achievement Gap and School Segregation

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "How does the racial composition of a school’s student body differ for the average Black or White student?"
25 Aug 2015
Report

Maintaining the Validity of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in a Common Core Based Environment

The creation and widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has ushered in a significant change in education policy leading to great interest in tracking its impact on student achievement. However, throughout this transition to the CCSS, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) will continue to be a major indicator of interest to educators and policymakers. This white paper examines the issues associated with employing NAEP in the role of monitoring student achievement during a period when states are increasingly implementing CCSS-based assessments.
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23 Jul 2015
Blog Post

How NAEP Can Help Congress Weigh Student Achievement Standards

Both the House and Senate revisions of the Elementary and Secondary School Act are moving toward giving states far more responsibility for setting student achievement standards than did the last ESEA reauthorization—the 2001 No Child Left Behind. As Congress wrestles with a final version of the bill, it would do well to examine what we’ve learned about state-set standards under NCLB. In this blog post, George Bohrnstedt explains how NAEP can help.
9 Jul 2015
Report

Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales: Results From the 2013 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments

States each develop their own standards to measure student assessment, so how do we compare the ability levels of students across the U.S.? This report, prepared by AIR for the Department of Education, maps state proficiency standards onto National Assessment of Education Progress scales to examine the variation among standards. It finds that the variation continues to be wide.
Alicia Garcia
26 May 2015
Blog Post

It’s Time for States to Stop Overstating Student Proficiency

New research is again highlighting the wide variation in states’ student performance standards and overly optimistic reports of student proficiency. Alicia Garcia argues that, going forward, states must adopt evidence-based methods of standard setting that prepare students to compete in the global marketplace.
Infographic thumbnail: Black-White Achievement Gap
10 May 2015
Infographic

Infographic: The Black-White Achievement Gap for Girls and Boys

This infographic, created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, addresses the question, "Does the Black-White achievement gap look the same for both girls and boys?"
18 Feb 2015
Brief

Gender Differences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Interest, Credits Earned, and NAEP Performance in the 12th Grade

As technical and scientific innovation continue to drive the global economy, educators, policymakers, and scientists seek to promote students’ interest and achievement in the STEM fields to maintain the nation’s competitive positions.

18 Sep 2014
Blog Post

Proficient in One State May Not Mean Proficient in Another (Never Mind the Global Economy)

As public debate over the use of Common Core standards in U.S. schools gathers steam, parents and policymakers need to know more about current proficiency standards and, as Gary Phillips says in this blog post, be prepared for some surprises. With each state defining "proficiency" differently, it is difficult to know how students compare, both within the U.S. and globally.
18 Jun 2014
Blog Post

Measuring Up in Mathematics: What’s the Right Measure?

NAEP's own data shows different rates among college seniors who are proficient vs. those who are ready for college. Until achievement results for 12th grade students with a good dose of Common-Core-based education under their belts become available, says Fran Stancavage in this blog post, educators who set NAEP standards may have to consider just what our national standard of math proficiency should be.
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6 Jun 2014
Blog Post

NAEP Puzzle: Why Does Academic Progress “Hit The Wall” in High School?

U.S. Department of Education data from May 2014 show stagnating scores in math and reading among high school seniors; yet younger students are showing progress. In this blog post, Mark Schneider uses NAEP data to further explore this disparity.
4 Jun 2014
Commentary

Why NAEP Should Go to College

We have no common metric to compare the learning outcomes of colleges and universities and no data to show if students graduating from college can read better than when they finished high school. We also have no data on whether going to an Ivy League school results in higher levels of learning than going to a state-supported school.
7 Feb 2014
Report

Linking the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading to the 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)

This linking study shows that NAEP Grade 4 reading achievement levels are higher than the PIRLS international benchmarks, providing one piece of validity evidence that NAEP results are internationally competitive.
Project

NAEP Achievement Gaps

Working with the National Center for Education Statistics, AIR produces reports analyzing the achievement gaps in student performance by race/ethnicity in an ongoing project. Two reports have been published, comparing the performance of Black and White and Hispanic and White students respectively, and a third is underway.

30 Aug 2013
Report

A Validity Study of the NAEP Full Population Estimates

This study examines the validity of imputation procedures used to calculate NAEP scores for excluded students and to provide adjusted or full population estimates for NAEP assessments. By comparing actual test results (i.e., plausible values) and full population estimates for these operationally excluded students, the study was able to evaluate the extent of bias. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas.
30 Aug 2013
Report

Study of the Feasibility of a NAEP Mathematics Accessible Block Alternative

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. This paper describes a feasibility study to determine whether measurement at the lower end of the student distribution, including measurement for students with disabilities and English language learners, could be improved by introducing “accessible” blocks aligned within the NAEP content frameworks.

26 Aug 2013
Report

Examining the Content and Context of the Common Core State Standards: A First Look at Implications for the National Assessment of Educational Progress

AIR's NAEP Validity Studies Panel explores the relationship between NAEP and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and to considering how NAEP can work synergistically with the CCSS assessments to provide the nation with the most useful information about educational progress. This volume includes two substantial studies exploring the relationship between the content of the NAEP mathematics, reading, and writing assessments and the CCSS in mathematics and English language arts.

1 Feb 2012
Report

Examining NAEP Achievement in Relation to School Testing Conditions in the 2010 Assessments

This study examined NAEP testing conditions in schools and investigated whether being assessed in less than optimal testing conditions is associated with lower student achievement on the assessments.

1 Feb 2012
Report

Alternative Approaches to Setting Performance Standards for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

This paper considers three alternative approaches to setting performance standards (the predictive, the international benchmark, and the baseline normative approaches) and hybrid approaches that combine features across these three.

11 Jan 2012
Report

Validity Issues Involved in Cross-Grade Statements About NAEP Results

The reading and mathematics measures of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have been, and continue to be, reported on scales that appear to have the properties of “cross-grade” scales. The conclusion of this essay will be that evidence can and should be assembled to support, and make more precise, certain interpretations, while others interpretations should be discouraged.

1 Sep 2009
Report

Utility and Validity of NAEP Linking Efforts

This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of commonly employed linking methodologies, reviews the history of linking efforts involving the NAEP, and proposes a framework to consider linking utility and validity

1 Sep 2009
Report

Sensitivity of NAEP to the Effects of Reform-Based Teaching and Learning in Middle School Mathematics

This study is a validity study intended to test the adequacy of NAEP for detecting and monitoring the effects of mathematics education reform.

1 Sep 2009
Report

Guiding Principles and Suggested Studies for Determining When the Introduction of a New Assessment Framework Necessitates a Break in Trend in NAEP

The purpose of this paper is to recommend guiding principles, studies, and decision-making processes that can assist NCES in determining whether the results generated by an assessment based on a new NAEP framework can be validly reported on the same trend line as previous versions of the assessment.

Project

NAEP Validity Studies (NVS) Panel

AIR formed the NAEP Validity Studies Panel in 1995 under contract with the National Center for Education Statistics. The panel provides a technical review of NAEP plans and products and identifies technical concerns and promising techniques worthy of further study and research.

13 Jul 2009
Report

Achievement Gaps: How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Math and Reading

Detailed information on the size of the achievement gaps between Black and White students at both the national and state level and how those achievement gaps have changed over time.

11 Jul 2009
Video

The Second Derivative: Panel Discussion

In June of 2009, AIR released a new international grading index. Watch a video of the panel discussion with Gary Phillips, Dane Linn, Douglas Levin , and Mitch Chester.
11 Jul 2009
Video

The Second Derivative: Report Presentation

In June of 2009, AIR released a new international grading index. Watch a video of the report presentation.
2 Jan 2009
Report

Title I Implementation: Update on Recent Evaluation Findings

This report provides a summary of findings from Title I evaluation studies that have become available after the publication of the National Assessment of Title I final report in 2007.

1 Dec 2008
Report

Expectations and Reports of Homework for Public School Students in the First, Third, and Fifth Grades

This Issue Brief reports that the amount of reading and mathematics homework that students' teachers expected them to complete on a typical evening generally increased from first grade to fifth grade. Children in schools with higher percentages of minority students had teachers who expected more homework on a typical evening compared to children in lower minority schools. In addition, in all three grades, larger percentages of Black, Asian, and Hispanic children than White children had parents who reported that their child did homework five or more times a week.

29 Dec 2007
Report

Lessons Learned from U.S. International Science Performance

All three major international assessments in science were given during 2003, an event that occurs only once every 12 years and offers a rare opportunity to compare performance across different grade and age levels. Along with examining U.S. international science performance, this study examines several country background variables that research suggests may be important in explaining students’ science outcomes.
Project

National Assessment of Educational Progress Education Statistics Service Institute (NAEP ESSI)

AIR’s NAEP Education Statistics Services Institute provides technical assistance, research and development support, and project management services to NCES on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

1 Sep 2007
Report

Validity Study of the NAEP Mathematics Assessment: Grades 4 and 8

This 2007 report is the result of a request by the National Center for Education Statistics to the NVS panel to undertake a validity study of the current National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment.

1 Sep 2007
Report

Partitioning NAEP Trend Data

This paper is a demonstration of how partitioning analysis can be used to help separate changes in reading and mathematical proficiency from changes in school populations over assessment years, using NAEP data.

1 Jun 2007
Report

Estimating Effects of Non-Participation on State NAEP Scores Using Empirical Methods

This study addresses the threat to the validity of scores arising from differential and changing participation rates of schools and students in NAEP testing.

24 Apr 2007
Report

Expressing International Educational Achievement in Terms of U.S. Performance Standards

This paper links the scale of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to the scale of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The purpose of this linking is to project the NAEP achievement levels onto the TIMSS scale.

1 Jan 2007
Report

An Investigation of Factors Affecting SD/LEP Inclusions/Exclusions in NAEP

The motivation for the present study was to obtain more systematic information about how decisions are made at the local school level so as to better understand the causes of the observed variation and to suggest modifications in NAEP procedures that could reduce variation.

1 Dec 2006
Report

State Implementation of NCLB Policies and Interpretation of the NAEP Performance of English Language Learners

This report outlines a number of critical issues that should be addressed in order to allow states to explore and understand relationships between the performance of English language learning students on NAEP and on state assessments in this policy context.

3 Oct 2006
Report

CSRQ Center Report on Middle and High School Comprehensive School Reform Models

This consumer guide provides comparative ratings on the effectiveness and quality of 18 widely adopted middle and high school whole-school improvement models. This report continues the Comprehensive School Reform Quality (CSRQ) Center’s efforts to issue reports that help education decision makers sort through options for whole-school and district improvement.

1 May 2006
Report

Comparing Mathematics Content in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 Assessments

This report compares three mathematics assessments conducted in 2003, and aims to provide information useful for interpreting and comparing results from the three assessments, based on an in-depth look at the content of the frameworks and items.

1 Mar 2005
Report

Using State Assessments to Assign Booklets to NAEP Students to Minimize Measurement Error: An Empirical Study in Four States

For this study, the records of participants in the 2003 NAEP reading and mathematics assessments in four states were matched to state assessment records, and the standard errors of lowest and highest quartile students, based on the state assessments, were compared for all of the existing NAEP item blocks.

1 Feb 2005
Report

Using State Assessments to Impute Achievement of Students Absent from NAEP: An Empirical Study in Four States

The purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which state assessment scores can be used to improve the adjustments of NAEP data to remove the biases due to absences.

1 May 2004
Report

Evaluation of Bias Correction Methods for “Worst-case” Selective Non-participation in NAEP

This study estimated the potential bias from "worst-case" scenarios of selective non-participation in NAEP, and examined the extent to which statistical methods can correct for that bias.

1 May 2004
Report

Assigning Adaptive NAEP Booklets Based on State Assessment Scores: A Simulation Study of the Impact on Standard Errors

The purpose of this simulation was to assess the improvements in standard errors of estimates that could be expected if students participating in NAEP were pre-assigned to test booklets that were adapted to their level of performance based on their state assessment scores.

1 May 2004
Report

Federal Sample Sizes for Confirmation of State Tests in the No Child Left Behind Act

This paper addresses statistical aspects of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. One of the goals of this paper is to further the discussion on how gaps in performance might be defined and to offer candidate gap estimators. Each of the candidate definitions of gap given will be evaluated with respect to three quantitative measures of student performance derived from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

1 Oct 2002
Report

An Agenda for NAEP Validity Research

This report resulted from the systematic analysis undertaken by the NAEP Validity Studies Panel in 2001 to consider the domain of validity threats to NAEP and to identify the most urgent validity research priorities as that time.

1 Jul 2002
Report

The Validity of Oral Accommodation in Testing

In recent years, educators and others responsible for large-scale assessments have sought to include more disabled students in testing programs. Test accommodations are already provided for some students taking the NAEP and other large-scale state assessments. This study examines the impact of oral presentation of a mathematics test on the performance of disabled and non-disabled students.
1 Nov 2000
Report

Computer Use and Its Relation to Academic Achievement in Mathematics, Reading, and Writing

The purpose of this study is to examine patterns of computer use in U.S. schools and the relation of computer use to academic achievement in mathematics, reading and writing.

1 Aug 2000
Report

Implications of Electronic Technology for the NAEP Assessment

The purpose of this paper is to review major options NAEP faces regarding introduction of technology into the assessment and to review priorities that can guide this introduction.

1 Mar 1999
Report

An Investigation of Why Students Do Not Respond to Questions

In this study, we explored potential reasons behind student omission of responses to assessment questions in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

1 Sep 1998
Report

Reporting the Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress

This paper explores the ways the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results might be communicated to its varied constituencies.

3 Aug 1998
Report

The Effects of Finite Sampling Corrections on State Assessment Sample Requirements

This paper explores the application of finite population correction factors to the between-school component of variance and examines how this might effect sample size requirements in the types of states that currently require exemptions from the minimum sample requirements for the state NAEP.

1 May 1998
Report

Feasibility Studies of Two-Stage Testing in Large-Scale Educational Assessment: Implications for NAEP

This report examines the potential of adaptive testing, two-?stage testing in particular, for improving the data quality of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

1 Dec 1997
Report

A Study of Equating in NAEP

This study investigates the amount of uncertainty added to NAEP estimates by equating error under both ideal and less than ideal circumstances.

1 Aug 1997
Report

Improving the Information Value of Performance Items in Large Scale Assessments

The authors of this paper provide a summary overview of what is already known and what is needed to learn about item types for future NAEP assessments.

1 May 1997
Report

Optimizing State NAEP: Issues and Possible Improvements

This paper addresses three key topics related to making state NAEP more efficient: reducing the burden for the states, stabilizing the assessment schedule, and facilitating and promoting the use of state NAEP data.