The purpose of this report is to provide technical information about the 1996 State Assessment in Mathematics. It provides a description of the design for the State Assessment and gives an overview of the steps involved in the implementation of the program from the planning stages through to the analysis and reporting of the data. The report describes in detail the development of the cognitive and background questions, the field procedures, the creation of the database and data products for analysis, and the methods and procedures used for sampling, analysis, and reporting. It does not provide the results of the assessment--rather, it provides information on how those results were derived. Chapters include: (1) "Overview: The Design, Implementation, and Analysis of the 1996 State Assessment Program in Mathematics"; (2) "Developing the Mathematics Objectives, Cognitive Items, Background Questions, and Assessment Instruments"; (3) "Sample Design and Selection"; (4) "State and School Cooperation and Field Administration"; (5) "Processing and Scoring Assessment Materials"; (6) "Creation of the Database, Quality Control of Data Entry, and Creation of the Database Products"; (7) "Weighting Procedures and Variance Estimation"; (8) "Theoretical Background and Philosophy of National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) Scaling Procedures"; (9) "Data Analysis and Scaling for the 1996 State Assessment Program in Mathematics"; and (10) "Conventions Used in Reporting the Results of the 1996 State Assessment Program in Mathematics." Appendices include: "Participants in the Objectives and Item Development Process"; "Summary of Participation Rates"; "Conditioning Variables and Contrast Codings"; "IRT (Item Response Theory) Parameters for Mathematics Items"; "State Assessment Program Reporting Subgroups; Composite and Derived Common Background Variables; and Composite and Derived Reporting Variables"; "Setting the NAEP Achievement Levels for the 1996 State Assessment in Mathematics"; "Correction of the NAEP Program Documentation Error in the 1992 State Mathematics Results"; "The Information Weighting Error"; and "Sample Design and Selection Tables." (Contains 78 references.) (ASK)

This technical report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1996 State Assessment Program in Mathematics presents fourth- and eighth-grade cross-state results of the NAEP 1996 State Assessment in mathematics. However, no interpretations of the data are included. This report does include the revised results from comparable assessments conducted in 1990 and 1992. These revisions were required due to errors in the procedures that were originally used to develop the NAEP mathematics scale and achievement levels. Eight chapters contain information on results for the nation in the context of content strands and type of school, scale information by population subgroups, background information collected from students and teachers via interviews and questionnaires, and classroom practices related to mathematics instruction. (DDR)