2000 High School Transcript Study Tabulations ReportAppendix A: The HSTS Sample

The High School Transcript Study (HSTS) is based on a nationally representative sample of graduating seniors at each selected school. The study's sample overlaps significantly with the initial NAEP sample for that year.

In 2000, 96 percent of the students sampled for the transcript study were from schools that participated in NAEP. The HSTS sample, from which the analyses for the 2000 HSTS tabulations are produced, consists of high school graduates who

• earned a regular diploma or an honors diploma, and 
• graduated in the year of the NAEP assessment.

In the study, high school students who were not included in the analysis of the data

• received special education diplomas or attendance certificates;
• failed to graduate in the year of the NAEP assessment; or
• had fewer than 16 total credits, or no English credits.

Transcripts with fewer than 16 credits were excluded because they were incomplete for various reasons such as transfer credits not being recorded. These inclusion and exclusion rules are consistent with rules used in other NAEP High School Transcript Studies.

The table below shows the the number of sampled schools and students for which transcripts were collected in the HSTS 2000 study.

Table A-1.   HSTS 2000 school and student sample sizes.

Response Category	Total Number of Sampled Schools	Total Number of Sampled Students
All schools	280	20,900
HSTS and NAEP cooperating schools, with linkage	250	19,500
HSTS cooperating schools only	20	800
HSTS and NAEP cooperating schools, no linkage	10	600

NOTE: The total number of sampled schools includes both public and nonpublic schools. The total number of sampled students includes students in both public and nonpublic schools. Public schools include all state-run elementary, secondary, charter, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Department of Defense schools. Nonpublic schools include Catholic schools, other religious schools, and all other private schools. Linkage indicates the identification of NAEP-participating students for the HSTS. No linkage indicates the loss of NAEP-participating student identification in the 6-month period between the NAEP student assessment and HSTS data collection.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, The 2000 High School Transcript Study User's Guide and Technical Report.