NAEP Technical DocumentationField Staff Structure Prior to 2002

Prior to 2002, field staff administered national assessments, pilot and field tests, and special studies while state assessments were administered by state personnel, and NAEP trained two different staffs (one national, one state) to conduct these assessments. The advent in 2002 of NAEP staff administration of all assessments supplanted the need for separate staffs, and since then only one field staff has been recruited and trained for each assessment cycle.

National Assessment Field Staff

In order to reduce burden on schools participating in national assessments, NAEP field staff completed much of the work associated with the assessments. Field staff contacted school personnel to introduce the assessment, obtain student listings, schedule assessment dates, select samples, and conduct sessions. The national assessment field staff was structured as shown below:

Field Directors
↓
Field Managers
↓
Field Supervisors
↓
Exercise Administrators

Field Directors were responsible for oversight of all field activities.

Field Managers supervised the Field Supervisors, who had direct contact with the schools. Field Managers monitored school participation rates and conducted assessment day quality control site visits.

Field Supervisors were responsible for securing the cooperation of schools, obtaining student lists and selecting student samples, scheduling assessments, arranging and supervising assessment day activities, and supervising exercise administrators.

Exercise Administrators conducted assessment sessions and assisted field supervisors with clerical tasks.

State Assessment Field Staff

State and school staff were responsible for conducting state assessments. For this reason, the state assessment field staff was structured as shown below:

Field Directors
↓
Field Managers
↓                      ↓
State Coordinators            State Supervisors
↓                                          ↓
Local School/District Contacts                      Quality Control Monitors
↓                                                             
Local Assessment Administrators                                                                                   

Field Directors were responsible for oversight of all field activities.

Field Managers were responsible for training and working with State Coordinators and for supervising the State Supervisors assigned to those states. Field Managers monitored school participation rates and scheduled assessment dates. They also coordinated the hiring and training of Local Assessment Administrators.

State Coordinators were appointed by each jurisdiction volunteering to participate in the state assessment. The State Coordinator was the liaison between NAEP, the schools, and Local Assessment Administrators. State Coordinators were responsible for securing the cooperation of schools, obtaining student lists for student sampling and providing them to State Supervisors, and scheduling assessments.

State Supervisors hired, trained, and supervised Quality Control Monitors (QCM), trained Local Assessment Administrators, selected student samples, and conducted telephone follow-up interviews with school staff after assessments.

QCM were NAEP field staff who observed Local Assessment Administrators as they conducted sessions. Each QCM was assigned a field area within a state and was responsible for conducting in-person visits to 25 percent of the schools in that area and completing telephone follow-up interviews with the remaining schools.

At the local level, the State Coordinator interacted with district personnel (in some cases, directly with school personnel) to describe the purpose of the assessment and gain school cooperation.

Districts (or schools) appointed a Local Assessment Administrator to prepare for and conduct the assessment sessions in one or more schools. Local Assessment Administrators were responsible for the overall conduct of assessments. They identified students to be excluded from the assessments, notified sampled students and their teachers about their school's selection for NAEP, distributed assessment questionnaires and other materials, and shipped completed materials back to the NAEP processing and scoring center.

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