More About NAEP U.S. History

The NAEP U.S. history assessment presents a broad view of what America's students know in U.S. history. The assessment was developed by a committee of historians and measurement experts to capture the goals of the U.S. History Framework (1.22MB PDF).

The framework, which describes the goals of the assessment and what kind of exercises it ought to feature, was created by the National Assessment Governing Board through a comprehensive national process involving historians, educators, administrators and laypeople.

At grades 4, 8, and 12, the assessment consisted of the following types of questions:

• multiple-choice questions developed to address the full range of knowledge and skill areas outlined in the U.S. history framework document; and
• constructed-response tasks consisting of short- and extended-response questions.

NAEP also gives non-cognitive questionnaires to teachers, students, and schools that are part of the NAEP sample. Responses to these questionnaires give NAEP information about school policies affecting U.S. history instruction, as well as information about schools' educational resources.

Learn more about NAEP, the nation's only assessment of what students know and can do in various subject areas.

View the NAEP 2010 U.S. History Report Card.