NAEP Technical DocumentationStudent Sample Selection for the 2013 State Assessment

Within each sampled school, a sample of students was selected from a listing of the students in the sampled grade such that every student had an equal chance of selection. The student lists were submitted either electronically using a system known as E-filing or on paper. In E-filing, student lists are submitted in Excel files by either school coordinators or NAEP State Coordinators. The files can be submitted for one school at a time (known as single school E-file submission) or for an entire jurisdiction at once (known as multiple school E-file submission). E-filing allows schools to easily submit student demographic data electronically with the student lists, easing the burden on NAEP field supervisors and school coordinators. Schools that are unable to submit their student lists using the E-filing system provide hardcopy lists via the student listing form to NAEP field supervisors. In 2013, there were 16,898 schools that E-filed their student lists, while 548 lists were submitted using the student listing form.

In year-round, multi-track schools, students who were not scheduled to be in school on the assessment day were removed from the student lists prior to sampling. Student base weights were adjusted to account for these students.

The sampling process was the same, regardless of list submission type. The sampling process was systematic(e.g., if the sampling rate was one-half, a random starting point of one or two was chosen, and every other student on the list was selected). For E-filed schools only, where demographic data was submitted for every student on the frame, students were sorted by gender and race/ethnicity before the sample was selected to implicitly stratify the sample. 

In the certainty jurisdictions, all students were sampled in all schools. Otherwise, the sample size for grades 4 and 8 was 63 students (with the exception of 50 students in Puerto Rico), and the sample size for grade 12 was 60 students. Larger schools may have been selected with certainty in the sampling process and thus may have a larger sample size. In addition, most fourth-grade schools chose the option of taking all students when enrollment was less than 90 students. This increased the fourth-grade sample size in many states beyond the designated target. 

Some students enrolled in the school after the sample was selected. In such cases, new enrollees were sampled at the same rate as the students on the original list.

In fourth- and eighth-grade schools, sampled students were randomly assigned to mathematics, reading, and pilot as follows: 30 students for mathematics, 30 students for reading, and 3 students for pilot. However, for schools in Puerto Rico, only the special mathematics assessment was conducted. In twelfth-grade schools, sampled students were randomly assigned to mathematics and reading as follows: 30 students for mathematics and 30 students for reading. This was implemented by spiraling: the booklets assigned to sampled students were provided from booklet packets that had, on average, the correct ratio of each of the relevant assessments in a randomized order. 

Some of the students who were English language learners (ELL) or students with disabilities (SD) were excluded from the assessment because they could not be assessed with the accommodations NAEP provides.

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