Chapter 17 - The National Assessment of Educational Progress

Abstract

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a continuing federally mandated national survey of educational achievement. NAEP is intended primarily to estimate the performance of populations of students. They report their aggregated performance and trends in their performance to educational policy makers and the general public. The goals of NAEP are different from other testing programs and this has led to rather unusual features in its design. NAEP is a particularly well-documented testing program. In this chapter, the general design of NAEP is described. Since NAEP is a continuing program, its design is constantly changing to meet new information demands and budgetary restraints. Although the design details may vary, the components of a testing program are relatively fixed. The last section of the chapter is dedicated to the step of reporting. Reporting is the last step, where NAEP fulfills its aim of informing policy makers and the public. NAEP includes a substantial amount of innovative and complex technology. This technology contributes to NAEP's ability to produce readable, informative reports. These reports include not only the required population estimates but also estimates of the accuracy of its results.