Overview of the National Assessment of Educational Progress

This chapter gives an overview of the design and the statistical and psychometric analysis methods developed for use in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). For more than 20 years, NAEP has provided information about the educational achievements of students in American schools. In recent years, NAEP has been gaining in prominence and has also been growing bigger and more complex. In 1990, an assessment of individual states was added to NAEP. Also, it is anticipated that the legislation that prohibits NAEP from reporting district and school results may be removed and that NAEP may return to annual rather than biennial assessments. In addition, future assessments will involve a larger number of innovative items, such as questions for which students must produce their own answers rather than selecting among specified options, tasks in which students are asked to read aloud, and portfolios that consist of classroom work produced over a period of time. NAEP's never-ending growth and evolution continue to provide new technological challenges to its statisticians and psychometricians.

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