NAEP Assessment Weighting Procedures → Weighting Procedures for the 2009 Assessment → Computation of Full-Sample Weights for the 2009 Assessment → School and Student Nonresponse Weight Adjustments for the 2009 Assessment → School Nonresponse Weight Adjustment for the 2009 Assessment → Development of Initial School Nonresponse Cells for the 2009 Assessment

NAEP Technical DocumentationDevelopment of Initial School Nonresponse Cells for the 2009 Assessment

The cells for nonresponse adjustments are generally functions of the school sampling strata for the individual samples. School sampling strata usually differ by assessment subject, grade, and school type (public or private). Assessment subjects that are administered together by way of spiraling have the same school samples and stratification schemes. Subjects that are not spiraled with any other subjects have their own separate school sample. In NAEP 2009, the reading, mathematics, and science assessments were spiraled together, but science HOT and science ICT were not spiraled with any other subject. 

The description of the initial nonresponse cells for the various 2009 NAEP samples are described below.

Public School Samples for Reading, Mathematics, and Science at Grades 4 and 8

For these samples, initial weighting cells were formed within each 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 (urban-centric locale) stratum; and
• race/ethnicity classification, or achievement level, or median income, or grade enrollment.

In general, the nonresponse cell structure used minority stratum as the lowest level variable. However, where there was only one race/ethnicity category within a particular urbanicity stratum, categorized achievement or median income data were used instead.

Public School Samples for Reading, Mathematics, and Science at Grade 12

The cell definitions varied by states with or without state-reportable samples. The initial weighting cells for states with state-reportable samples were formed within each state using the following cell structure:

• urbanicity (urban-centric locale) stratum; and

• race/ethnicity classification or median income.

In general, the nonresponse cell structure used minority stratum as the lowest level variable. However, where there was only one race/ethnicity category within a particular urbanicity stratum, categorized median income data were used instead.

The initial weighting cells for the states without state-reportable samples were formed using the following nesting cell structure:

Private School Samples for Reading, Mathematics, and Science at Grades 4, 8, and 12

The initial weighting cells for these samples were formed within each grade using the following nesting cell structure:

• affiliation (Catholic or non-Catholic);
• census division stratum;
• urbanicity stratum; and
• race/ethnicity classification.

Public School Samples for Science HOT and Science ICT at Grades 4, 8, and 12

The initial weighting cells for these samples were formed within each subject and grade using the following nesting cell structure:

• census region; and
• urban-centric locale.

Private School Samples for Science HOT and Science ICT at Grades 4, 8, and 12

The initial weighting cells for these samples were formed within each subject and grade using the following nesting cell structure:

• affiliation (Catholic or non-Catholic); and
• census region.

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