NAEP Technical DocumentationQuality Control of Assessment Activities

			The Quality Control Booklet Supervisory Site Visits Follow-Up Outreach

To promote consistency in the conduct of assessments, NAEP prescribes procedures that must be completed by field staff before, during, and after each assessment. Doing so helps foster high data quality and facilitate adherence to legal requirements, as well as minimize the risk that any required data collection form is incomplete or unreturned. These routines are formalized in the Quality Control Booklet, one of which is completed by field staff for each grade at each sampled school (i.e., two Quality Control Booklets are completed for a school having two sampled grades).

Supervisory site visits and follow-up outreach with schools are intended to quickly identify and diagnose any potential problems with field staff teams. The quality of NAEP assessment data depends on having thoroughly trained data collectors possessing the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully prepare for and conduct assessments. Frequent monitoring helps promote compliance with established procedures. In-person visits permit many of the most experienced field staff members and other NAEP personnel to observe staff performance. Follow-up outreach with a subset of assessed schools permits efficient identification of any potential problems, and, if necessary, permits NAEP to restore positive relationships with schools that may be again sampled for future assessments.

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