NAEP Technical DocumentationSubstitute Public Schools for the 2014 Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) Assessment

Substitutes were preselected for the public school samples by sorting the school frame file according to the actual order used in the sampling process (the implicit stratification). For operational reasons, the original selection order was embedded within the sampled primary sampling unit (PSU) and state. Each sampled school had each of its nearest neighbors within the same sampling stratum on the school frame file identified as a potential substitute. When grade enrollment was used as the last sort ordering variable, the nearest neighbors had grade enrollment values very close to that of the sampled school. This was done to facilitate the selection of about the same number of students within the substitute as would have been selected from the original sampled school.

Schools were disqualified as potential substitutes if they were already selected in any of the original public school samples or assigned as a substitute for another public school (earlier in the sort ordering). Schools assigned as substitutes for twelfth-grade schools were disqualified as potential substitutes for eighth-grade schools (this is true because the substitutes were selected before large parts of the 2014 assessment were cancelled).

If both nearest neighbors were still eligible to be substitutes, the one with a closer grade enrollment was chosen. If both nearest neighbors were equally distant from the sampled school in their grade enrollment (an uncommon occurrence), one of the two was randomly selected.

Of the approximately 770 originally sampled public schools for the eighth-grade TEL assessment, about 10 schools had a substitute activated because the original eligible school did not participate. Ultimately, less than 10 of the activated substitute public schools participated in the TEL assessment.

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