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NAEP Sample Design → NAEP 2002 Sample Design → 2002 State Assessment Sample Design → Stratification of Schools in Public School Sampling Frame

NAEP Technical DocumentationStratification of Schools in Public School Sampling Frame

			Stratification Variables

The purpose of stratification is to increase the efficiency of the school samples by reducing (or eliminating) variability in the sample size for important school reporting groups within each jurisdiction. NAEP school sampling uses two types of stratification: explicit and implicit.

Explicit stratification assigns each school to a mutually exclusive and exhaustive stratum, and assigns an optimal sample size to each stratum—optimal in the sense of being proportional to the share of estimated student enrollment in the grade for that student group. This stratification allows each stratum to have a sample size exactly equal to the optimal sample size according to its enrollment.

Under implicit stratification schools are ordered within an explicit stratum, and systematic sampling is done using this ordering. This stratification reduces the variability of the sample size around the optimal sample size for important student groups within the explicit stratum, but not to zero as in explicit stratification. Implicit stratification as opposed to explicit stratification leaves some variability in the sample size, but avoids distortion of the measures of size so that they can add up to integer totals as in explicit stratification. All stratification is implicit in the 2002 state assessment sampling process.

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