NAEP Technical DocumentationStudent Sample Selection Within Public Schools for the 2010 Assessment

The student sample sizes within sampled schools varied by grade. All fourth-grade students in the school were sampled if the school had 170 or fewer students in that grade. For schools with more than 170 fourth-grade students, a sample of 150 students was selected without replacement. For eighth and twelfth grades, all students were sampled if the school had 110 or fewer students in that grade. Otherwise, a sample of 100 students was selected without replacement.

The assessments were partitioned into two session types: history/geography and "other." For fourth grade, the "other" session included civics, a writing pilot, and an accessible booklets pilot. For eighth grade, the "other" session included civics and an accessible booklets pilot. For twelfth grade, the "other" session included civics.

Student sampling was designed to achieve proportions shown in the table below for each session (history/geography and other), which would provide the targets needed for each assessment overall.

The table also presents the target sample sizes and maximum sample sizes for students in schools for each session type and grade, as specified above.

Proportions for session assignments, target sample, size and maximum sample size, by grade: 2010
Grade	History/geography	Other	Target sample size	Maximum sample size
NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2010.
4	.4000	.6000	150	170
8	.6207	.3793	100	110
12	.6923	.3077	100	110

The process of list submission, sampling students from year-round schools, sampling newly identified students (including new enrollees), and determining student eligibility and exclusion status was the same as the process used for the NAEP 2009 state student samples.

Last updated 08 August 2012 (GF)

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