NAEP Technical DocumentationNAEP Processing Assessment Materials

In each assessment cycle, the NAEP materials, distribution, processing, and scoring staff is responsible for tasks primarily supporting the digitally based assessment (DBA). These responsibilities include the preparation, management, processing, and scoring open-ended student responses for each subject and area sample, questionnaires, and administrative materials, with limited support for paper‑based assessment (PBA) activities as it is now rarely used except for Long-Term Trend. Key tasks include:

printing assessment materials needed for DBA and PBA assessments, when applicable;
packaging and distributing DBA-related materials to administrators, including student login cards, subject and accommodation ancillaries and PBA-related materials i.e., assessment booklets, when applicable;
controlling receipt and management of DBA files, with associated tracking of returned PBA booklets when applicable;
capturing and validation, of digital student responses, including text and image files generated through the DBA platform;
capturing, editing, and validation of data through image and optical mark recognition scanning of the PBA documents;
controlling quality;
uploading open-ended responses into NAEP's electronic scoring system, including DBA-generated files and scanned images from PBA;
creating scoring training sets for new items;
training scorers to human score open-ended constructed response items;
creating data files; and
controlling inventory and material storage of assessment materials and digital assets.

Details on the subjects, grades, and overall student counts in each NAEP assessment year can be found in the links below.

Last updated 18 March 2026 (SK)

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NAEP Technical DocumentationNAEP Processing Assessment Materials