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Advancements in Assessments
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is committed to using the latest research and cutting-edge technologies in developing assessments, and collaborates with a wide range of advisory groups on content, modeling, methodology, and reporting.
Current and future initiatives for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) include
designNAEP Studies More Efficient Design
Starting in 2021, NCES will begin exploring a new innovative assessment design that will improve efficiencies in NAEP data collection, including reducing the program’s footprint across the country and in each participating school.
Prior to 2021, students received two timed sections (i.e., cognitive blocks) of questions in one subject area followed by a brief survey questionnaire. Under the new design, students will respond to assessment questions in three cognitive blocks and answer survey questions. Efficiencies will be gained by sampling fewer students and asking them to respond to more questions, including questions from multiple subjects.
If the study design is successful, NCES will administer NAEP in fewer schools, assess fewer students, and spend less time in schools. In 2021, NCES will administer the new design for NAEP mathematics and reading at grades 4 and 8 only. Other subjects and grades will transition to the new design in future years.
NCES is committed to reporting trends in student achievement while studying this new design; therefore, the 2021 NAEP mathematics and reading administrations will feature both the current and new designs. Most students will participate in the current design and answer questions in only one subject. For schools selected to participate in the study assessment design, some students will answer questions in only mathematics or reading, and other students will answer questions in both subjects. 2021 U.S. history and civics assessments will use the current two-cognitive block design.
New Item Types
NAEP digitally based assessments use innovative testing methods and interactive item types to capture information about students’ problem-solving methods. Some questions might use audio and video multimedia. Other questions use embedded technological features such as an onscreen calculator, drag-and-drop items, and slider controls to form a response. Questions also might engage students in solving problems using realistic scenarios.
Explore Innovative NAEP Assessments
Evidence-Centered Design in NAEP
To ensure that the assessment development process remains innovative, NCES applies evidence-centered design (ECD) principles to NAEP assessments. ECD provides an evidence-driven framework for designing, producing, and delivering assessments. It is used as a tool to support developing assessments with clear links for measuring and reporting goals.
In NAEP, multidisciplinary design teams establish clear goals and assessment designs. Teams include cognitive scientists, user experience professionals, assessment developers, and psychometric staff. The ECD process requires documented, explicit links among the purpose for a test, the claims made about test takers, the evidence supporting those claims, and the test takers’ responses to the tasks that provide the evidence. The ECD process provides a logical and systematic method of developing NAEP assessment and tasks and questions based on the knowledge and skills outlined in subject frameworks.
A Brief Introduction to Evidence-Centered Design offers additional information.
Learn MoreSurvey Assessment Innovation Lab
The Survey Assessment Innovations Lab (SAIL) was formed as a result of the 2013 Future of NAEP conference. SAIL, part of an expanded assessment research and development initiative, supports and oversees a portfolio of innovative research studies essential to keeping NAEP at the forefront of innovation and best practices. Current efforts focus on
Current NAEP SAIL projects include
This page will include links to the results of these studies as they become available.
Survey Questionnaires and Index Scores
NAEP’s survey data helps policymakers, researchers, educators, and the public understand the context of student achievement results and enables meaningful comparison among student groups.
Historically, NAEP has designed its survey questionnaires around single questions, and questionnaire results were therefore reported for single questions. In 2014, the program enhanced the survey questionnaire design and reporting approach to examine information of key interest to NAEP audiences. Specifically, while some survey questions are still analyzed and reported as single items (for example, gender), several questions on the same topic are combined into indices measuring a single underlying construct or concept.
Advisory Groups
NCES collaborates with the NAEP Validity Studies (NVS) Panel, the Design Committee (DAC), and attendees at NAEP conferences. Since 1995, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) has maintained the NVS, an independent panel of experts that meets to commission and discuss research addressing validity considerations for NAEP. DAC has been instrumental in assisting NCES through the transition to a digitally based assessment.
In addition, NCES periodically convenes larger conferences where experts from a variety of fields can provide additional input regarding the future direction of the program five, ten, and twenty years down the road.
Last updated 16 October 2020 (AA)