National assessment of educational progress [United States], 1970-1980

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a continuing survey of the knowledge, skills, understandings and attitudes of young Americans. Each year for the past 11 years, 75,000 to 100,000 persons have been assessed in one or more learning areas taught in the schools. NAEP uses stratified, multi-stage probability samples in all assessments. The first stage consists of geographic areas (typically counties). Within each geographic area, both public and private schools are sampled, each booklet is administered to a separate random sample of respondents within the sampled schools. For every age group, there are between five and fifteen different booklets in each of the subject areas. Since each student responds to only one booklet, this means that there are between five and fifteen different probability samples for each age group. A specific school is likely to be sampled for more than one booklet, however booklet administrations are randomly allocated to schools and no school receives all of the different booklets. A number of background variables are available in all files. At the school level, region, census division, type and size of community, occupation mix of attendance area, grade range, racial composition, total enrollment, and Title I elegibility are included.