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A Pragmatic Future for NAEP Containing Costs and Updating Technologies (2022) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 32-37

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From page 32...
... For all of them, we assume that an integrated assessment would allow the reporting of separate subscales for the separate subjects, allowing the separate subject results to continue to be reported where those are relevant. Current practice in the states is one reasonable proxy to use as an indicator of current perspectives about meaningful groupings of educational subjects.8 A high-level consideration of trends in state assessment practices suggests three potential subject groupings that might be relevant for NAEP: reading and writing; science and engineering; and history, civics, economics, and geography.
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From page 33...
... NAEP has traditionally assessed all four as separate assessments, though the current assessment schedule shows no plans to assess economics and geography through 2030.11 Two other potential subject groupings are not reflected in current state assessment practice as combined assessments but involve substantive relationships across assessments that may be meaningful to reflect in NAEP: reading with science or history, and mathematics and science. NAEP's new reading framework (NAGB, 2021)
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From page 34...
... With respect to potential cost savings from combining assessments the primary opportunities lie with the three subject combinations -- language arts, science and engineering, and social studies -- that are already reflected in current state assessments. There are several relevant considerations with respect to the net benefit of such combinations: need for new frameworks, assessment schedule, sample size, and preserving subjects.
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From page 35...
... However, even the brief review above suggests there might also be strong arguments for integrating other subjects, and we note the integration across disciplinary contexts already reflected in the new reading framework. Such combined assessments could continue to report subscores for the subjects that are currently assessed with separate assessments.
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From page 37...
... CURRENT COSTS Test item development for NAEP is expensive. The costs for item creation and review range from $1,000 to $2,500 for selected-response items, from $1,500 to $3,500 for constructed-response items, and from $6,000 to $20,000 for scenario-based task items.1 With a typical distribution across these three types and taking the midpoint of the ranges, average per-item costs for creation and review are about $3,700.2 1 NCES response to Q68a.
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Key Terms

  • state assessment
  • item development
  • item types
  • test administration
  • nces response

  • national assessment
  • urban district
  • state assessments
  • national assessments
  • assessment schedule

  • language arts
  • framework updates
  • item creation
  • separate assessments
  • combined assessments

  • assessment governing
  • reading framework
  • engineering literacy
  • potential cost
  • constructed responses

  • framework committees
  • reading assessments
  • currently assessed
  • engineering practices
  • separate subject

  • potential subject
  • disciplinary contexts
  • subject groupings
  • trend information
  • social studies


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