NAEP Assessment Sample Design → NAEP 2011 Sample Design → Sample Design for the 2011 National Assessment → 2011 Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Private School National Assessment → Stratification of Schools in the 2011 Private School National Assessment

NAEP Technical DocumentationStratification of Schools in the 2011 Private School National Assessment

Explicit stratification for the NAEP 2011 private school samples was by private school type: Catholic, Lutheran, Conservative Christian, Other Private, and unknown affiliation. Private school affiliation was unknown for nonrespondents to the NCES Private School Universe Survey (PSS) for the past three cycles.

The implicit stratification of the schools involved four dimensions. Within each explicit stratum, the private schools were hierarchically sorted by census division, urbanicity status, race/ethnicity status, and estimated grade enrollment. The implicit stratification in this four-fold hierarchical stratification was achieved via a "serpentine sort."

Census division was used as the first level of implicit stratification for the NAEP 2011 private school sample.

Collapsing of census division varied by grade. For grade 4, all nine census divisions were used for stratifying Catholic and other private schools. However, due to small cell sizes, divisions in the Northeast and Midwest were collapsed within census regions for Conservative Christian schools. For Lutheran schools, a South Central stratum was created within the southern region and divisions were collapsed across regions to create an East Coast stratum. For grade 8, all census divisions were used to stratify Catholic and other private schools. Divisions in the Northeast were collapsed within region for both Conservative Christian and Lutheran schools. Additionally for Lutheran schools, two divisions were collapsed within the southern region to create a South Central stratum.

The next level of stratification was an urbanicity classification based on urban-centric locale, as specified on the PSS. Within a census  division-based stratum, urban-centric locale cells that were too small were collapsed. The criterion for adequacy was that the cell had to have an expected school sample size of at least six.

The urbanicity variable was equal to the original urban-centric locale if no collapsing was necessary to cover an inadequate original cell. If collapsing was necessary, the scheme was to first collapse within the four major strata (city, suburbs, town, and rural). For example, if the expected number of large city schools sampled was less than six, large city was collapsed with midsize city. If the collapsed cell was still inadequate, they were further collapsed with small city. If a major stratum cell (all three cells collapsed together) was still deficient, it was collapsed with a neighboring major stratum cell. For example, city would be collapsed with suburbs.

The last stage of stratification was a division of the geographic/urbanicity strata into race/ethnicity strata if the expected number of schools sampled was large enough (i.e., at least equal to 12). This was done by deciding first on the number of race/ethnicity strata and then dividing the geography/urbanicity stratum into that many pieces. The school frame was sorted by the percentage of students in each school who were Black, Hispanic, or American Indian. The three race/ethnic groups defining the race/ethnicity strata were those that have historically performed substantially lower on NAEP assessments than White students. The sorted list was then divided into pieces, with roughly an equal expected number of sampled schools in each piece.

Finally, schools were sorted within stratification cells by estimated grade enrollment.

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