NAEP Technical DocumentationDevelopment of the Arts Cognitive Items and Instruments

			Student booklets: 2016 Student booklets: 2008 Number of items: 2016 Number of items: 2008 Common blocks: 2016

The instruments used in the 2016 NAEP arts assessment (conducted at grade 8 only) are composed of blocks of cognitive items which were initially administered in the 1997 NAEP arts assessment, and are identical to the blocks administered in the 2008 assessment. Administering the same blocks of items across years allows for the reporting of trends in arts performance. In an assessment year, one or more of these blocks may be released to the public and can be accessed via the NAEP Questions Tool (NQT). Selected items from the 2008 and 2016 arts assessments are available in the NQT.

The NAEP arts framework and specifications documents guide the item development efforts. While the framework specifies that students' art knowledge and skills be measured in four arts disciplines (dance, music, theatre, and visual arts), due to budget constraints in 2008 and 2016, the arts assessment was administered in music and visual arts only. Additionally, three arts processes—responding, creating, and performing—are central to students' experiences in each of the disciplines. While the responding process refers to observing, describing, analyzing, and evaluating works of art, the creating process refers to expressing ideas and feelings in the form of an original work of art. Although not assessed in 2008 and 2016, the performing process refers to interpreting and re-creating an existing work of art. Only the responding process in music and both the responding and creating processes in visual arts were assessed in 2008 and 2016.

Items are written by a team composed of NAEP item development staff, kindergarten through twelfth-grade teachers, and postsecondary teachers around the country. As part of this process, stimuli for items are identified from sources familiar to content experts (in this case, music and visual arts experts), such as musical scores that students may encounter in or outside of school, or visual artworks that can be viewed in museums or that are works of public art. All assessment materials are reviewed by members of the Arts Standing Committee as well as other specialists in education and assessment development.

After all of the steps in the item-development process have been completed, the booklets are distributed to schools for the administration of the assessment.

Click here for more information about what the NAEP arts assessment measures.

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