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NAEP Technical Documentation2012 Public School Economics Assessment

      

Target Population

Sampling Frame

Stratification of Schools

Sampling of Schools

Substitute Schools

Ineligible Schools

Student Sample Selection

The NAEP 2012 sample design yielded a nationally representative sample of public school students in grade 12 through a three-stage approach: selection of primary sampling units (PSUs), selection of schools within strata, and selection of students within schools. The sample of schools was selected with probability proportional to a measure of size based on the estimated grade enrollment in the schools.

The 2012 sampling plan was designed to assess 12,600 twelfth-graders. These students were allocated among several tests. The operational tests were in economics. Pilot tests in mathematics and reading were also administered. Target sample sizes were adjusted to reflect expected public school and student response and eligibility.

Schools on the sampling frame were explicitly stratified prior to sampling by PSU type (certainty/noncertainty). Within certainty PSUs, schools were implicitly stratified by census region, urban-centric locale, Black/Hispanic/American Indian stratum, and estimated grade enrollment. Within noncertainty PSUs, schools were implicitly stratified by PSU stratum, urban-centric locale, and Black/Hispanic/American Indian percent. 

From the stratified frame of public schools, a systematic random sample of twelfth-grade schools was drawn with probability proportional to a measure of size based on the estimated 12th grade enrollment of the school.  

Additionally, Black and Hispanic students were oversampled at a moderate rate. Schools in a high Black/Hispanic stratum (i.e., schools with 15 percent or more Black and Hispanic students and at least 10 Black or Hispanic students in the sample grade) were sampled at twice the rate (by doubling their measure of size) as schools not in a high Black/Hispanic stratum to implement oversampling of Black and Hispanic students.

An additional NCES assessment was conducted at the same time as the NAEP 2012 Economics assessment: the long-term trend(LTT) assessment. To reduce the burden on any particular school, efforts were made to minimize the overlap of the economics sample schools with the schools already selected for the LTT sample. This was accomplished by applying the Keyfitz process, in which conditional probabilities of selection were computed and used in the school sample selection process.

Each selected school in the public school sample provided a list of eligible enrolled students from which a systematic, equal probability sample of students was drawn.


Last updated 11 September 2012 (DB)