This report describes students' reading achievements at grades 4, 8, and 12 and within various subgroups of the general population. State-level results are presented for individual states that chose to participate in the 1994 Trial State Assessment. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the 1994 NAEP reading assessment and sample questions and responses. Chapter 2 provides overall average proficiency results for the nation, regions, subgroups of students, and jurisdictions participating in the Trial State Assessment. Chapter 3 describes students' reading performance in terms of achievement levels. Chapter 4 focuses on cross-state comparisons of proficiency results from the state-by-state assessment at grade 4. Chapter 5 describes contextual factors related to students' reading achievement. Chapter 6 describes specific abilities demonstrated by students in the NAEP reading assessment and reports student performance when reading for different purposes. The "most striking" finding from the 1994 assessment is that the average reading proficiency of 12th-grade students declined significantly from 1992 to 1994. Other major findings include: (1) the decline in average proficiency among 12th-graders between 1992 and 1994 was concentrated among lower performing students; (2) reading proficiency at all three grade levels was higher on average for students whose parents had more education; (3) at all three grade levels, female students had higher average reading proficiencies than male students; and (4) students who reported having a greater array of literacy materials in their homes displayed higher average reading achievement. Contains 38 tables and 23 figures of data. Appendixes provide an overview of procedures used in the 1994 assessment and describe students' reading performance; cross-state proficiency and achievement level results; and sample texts and questions. (RS)

This technical report on the National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1996 State Assessment Program in Science provides an overview of the design, implementation and analysis of the educational assessment including details of sampling design, field administration, preliminary data analysis, and reporting of state results. This report also provides details on the background of the development of the 1996 instrument for science, sample design and selection, state and school cooperation, processing and scoring assessment materials, creation of the database and database products, weighting procedures and variance estimation, theoretical background and philosophy of NAEP scaling procedures, data analysis and scaling for the science assessment program, and conventions used in reporting the results. (DDR)

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)

The 1994 High School Transcript Study (HSTS) provides the Department of Education and other policymakers with information about current course offerings and students' course-taking patterns in the nation's secondary schools. One objective was to determine changes in course offering and selection patterns since the previous studies in 1982, 1987, and 1990. Another research objective was to compare course-taking patterns to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an assessment of educational achievement nationwide. In 1994, transcripts were collected for more than 25,000 students who graduated from high school that year. These students were from 340 schools that participated in the NAEP. This technical report documents the procedures used to collect and summarize the data. An accompanying volume provides tables of findings, and another contains the data file user's manual. The following sections are included: (1) "Executive Summary"; (2) "Background: Sample Design"; (3) "Selection of Schools and Students for the 1994 High School Transcript Study"; (4) "Data Collection Procedures"; (5) "Data Processing Procedures"; (6) "Weighting and Estimation of Sampling Variance"; (7) "1994 High School Transcript Study Data Files"; and (8) "References." Five appendixes provide supplementary information about the study methodology. (Contains 30 tables, 2 figures, 23 exhibits, and 18 references.) (SLD)