NAEP Technical DocumentationDevelopment of Initial School Nonresponse Cells for the 2005 Assessment

The cells for nonresponse adjustments are generally functions of the school sampling strata. Sampling strata definitions differ by sample, that is, by whether a sample is state-based or national, public or private schools, grade, and assessment type (operational or bridge).

State-Based Public School Operational Samples at Grades 4 and 8 (Alpha Samples)

These samples formed initial weighting cells within a jurisdiction using the following nesting cell structure:

Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) district vs. the balance of the state for states with TUDA districts,
urbanicity classification, and
race/ethnicity classification, or achievement level or median income, or grade enrollment.

In general, the nonresponse cell structure used minority classification as the lowest level variable. However, where there was only one race/ethnicity category within a particular level of urbanicity, categorized achievement or median income data were used instead. For Puerto Rico, schools were grouped according to student grade enrollment size due to the lack of data on urbanicity, achievement, income, and race/ethnicity.

National Public School Operational and Bridge Samples at Grades 4 and 8 (Beta Samples)

These samples formed initial weighting cells within science/nonscience domains using the following nesting cell structure:

census division stratum, and
urbanicity stratum.

National Public School Operational and Bridge Samples at Grade 12 (Gamma Samples)

These samples formed initial weighting cells within a census region using the following nesting cell structure:

census division stratum,
urbanicity stratum, and
race/ethnicity status stratum.

National Private School Operational and Bridge Samples at Grades 4, 8, and 12 (Delta Samples)

Private school samples formed initial weighting cells using the following nesting cell structure:

private school type (e.g., Catholic, Lutheran, etc.),
census division stratum,
urbanicity stratum, and
race/ethnicity status stratum.

Last updated 17 April 2009 (JL)

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