THE DESIGN OF THE NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL-PROGRESS

The key features of the design of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are discussed with particular emphasis on the design to be used for the 1992 assessment. An overview of the design and its philosophy are given with a description of the multicomponent solution to the twin requirements of reliably measuring trends in achievement while responding to changing educational priorities and advances in measurement technology. The student sample designs for the National Assessment and the Trial State Assessment are described. The focused-balanced incomplete block (focused-BIB) spiraling method of item sampling is discussed and compared with simpler matrix sampling designs. The impact of the NAEP design on the analysis of assessment data is discussed.