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NAEP Instruments → Cognitive Items and Instruments → Development of the Science Cognitive Items and Instruments → Student Booklets for the Science Assessment

NAEP Technical DocumentationStudent Booklets for the 2000 Science Assessment

The instruments used in the NAEP science assessment are composed of blocks of cognitive items from the previous NAEP assessment, as well as blocks that are newly developed for the current assessment. Administering the same blocks of items across years allows for the reporting of trends in science performance. At the same time, developing new sets of items makes it possible to release some items for public use. In some assessment years, one or more blocks at each grade are released to the public and can be accessed via the NAEP Questions Tool.

For the 2000 assessment, test developers chose thirty-three blocks from the 1996 assessment—eleven blocks at each grade. Three of these blocks at each grade level were hands-on tasks (as delineated in the tables below), where students were given a set of equipment and asked to conduct an investigation and answer questions related to the investigation. The hands-on task blocks appeared in even-numbered booklets. In addition, test developers created three new blocks at each grade. Three blocks at each grade were released to the public.

The tables below display the NAEP 2000 science assessment student booklet configurations for grade 4, grade 8, and grade 12.

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