NAEP Technical DocumentationStudent Sample Selection for the 2009 State Assessment

Within each sampled school, a sample of students was selected from a listing of the students in the grade such that every student had an equal chance of selection. The student lists were submitted in multiple ways. E-filing is an electronic submission system. Excel files are submitted for sampled schools by school coordinators or NAEP State Coordinators. Files can be submitted for one school at a time or for an entire jurisdiction at once. This method allows schools to easily submit student demographic data electronically with the student lists, easing the burden on NAEP field supervisors and school coordinators. Schools that are unable to submit their student lists using the e-filing system provide hard copy lists via the student listing form to NAEP field supervisors. In 2009, there were 18,687 schools that e-filed their student lists, while 764 lists were submitted using the student listing form.

In year-round, multi-track schools, students who were not scheduled to be in school on the assessment day were removed from the student lists prior to sampling. Student base weights were adjusted to account for these students.

The sampling process was the same, regardless of list submission type. The sampling process was systematic (e.g., if the sampling rate was one-half, a random starting point of one or two was chosen, and every other student on the list was selected). For e-filed schools only, where demographic data was submitted for every student on the frame, students were sorted by gender and race/ethnicity before the sample was selected to implicitly stratify the sample.

In the certainty jurisdictions, all students were sampled in all schools. Otherwise, the sample sizes for grades 4 and 8 were 90 students selected in jurisdictions participating in science and 63 students in jurisdictions not participating in science. Sample sizes for grade 12 varied by jurisdiction are shown in the following table. Larger schools may have been selected more than once in the sampling process and thus may have a larger sample size. In addition, most fourth-grade schools chose the option of taking all students when enrollment was less than 120. This increased the fourth-grade sample size in many states beyond the designated target.

Student sample sizes, grade 12 state assessment, by jurisdiction: 2009
Jurisdiction	Sample size
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2009 Assessment.
Idaho, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and West Virginia	80
Arkansas, Connecticut, and Iowa	85
Massachusetts	95
New Jersey	100
Illinois	120
Florida	125

Some students enrolled in the school after the sample was selected. In such cases, new enrollees were sampled at the same rate as the students on the original list.

In fourth- and eighth-grade schools that did not participate in the state science assessment, the sampled students were randomly assigned to reading, mathematics, and science as follows: 30 for mathematics, 30 for reading, and 3 for science. In fourth- and eighth-grade schools that did participate in the state science assessment, students were randomly assigned to a mathematics, reading, or science assessment, with one-third probability of getting each subject. In twelfth-grade schools, students were randomly assigned to a mathematics, reading, or science assessment in the proportions shown in the following table. This was implemented by spiraling: the booklets assigned to sampled students were provided from booklet packets which had, on average, equal numbers of each of the relevant assessments in a randomized order.

Student subject assignment, grade 12 state assessment, by subject and jurisdiction: 2009
Jurisdiction	Reading	Math	Science
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2009 Assessment.
Idaho, New Hampshire, South Dakota and West Virginia	0.50	0.49	0.01
Arkansas, Connecticut and Iowa	0.49	0.49	0.02
Massachusetts	0.49	0.47	0.04
New Jersey	0.48	0.47	0.05
Illinois	0.47	0.46	0.07
Florida	0.47	0.45	0.08

Some of the students who were English language learners (ELL) or students with disabilities (SD) were excluded from the assessment because they could not be assessed with the accommodations NAEP provides.
Excluded students were removed from the sample.

Last updated 12 August 2010 (JL)

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