The current study investigated the impact of manipulating reading strategy, reading the questions first (QF) or the passage first (PF), during a reading comprehension test, and we explored how reading strategy was related to student characteristics. Participants' eye movements were monitored as they read 12 passages and answered multiple-choice…

The National Assessment Governing Board has a legislatively mandated responsibility to develop National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) achievement levels. The Board Policy Statement on Developing Student Achievement Levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress provides policy definitions of "NAEP Basic,"…

Prior research suggests that males outperform females, on average, on multiple-choice items compared to their relative performance on constructed-response items. This paper characterizes the extent to which gender achievement gaps on state accountability tests across the United States are associated with those tests' item formats. Using roughly 8…

This study presents estimates of Black-White, Hispanic-White, and income achievement gaps using data from two different types of reading and mathematics assessments: constructed-response assessments that were likely more cognitively demanding and state achievement tests that were likely less cognitively demanding (i.e., composed solely or largely…

Several instruments previously validated for use in school library research were tested for their appropriateness in the context of public libraries' summer reading programs for youth. The researchers were also interested in whether the connection between perceived competence in one's own information skills and perceived competence in one's own…

This document provides an overview of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what students in the United States know and can do in various subjects. NAEP serves a different role than state assessments. States have their own unique assessments which are…

This edition of the Brown Center Report marks the tenth issue of the series and the final issue of Volume II. The publication began in 2000 with Bill Clinton in the White House and the Bush-Gore presidential campaign building toward its dramatic conclusion. That first report was organized in a three-part structure that all subsequent Brown Center…

This study investigated the effects of using modified items in achievement tests to enhance accessibility. An experiment determined whether tests composed of modified items would reduce the performance gap between students eligible for an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS) and students not eligible, and the…

As the ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading regularly collects achievement information on representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. The information that NAEP provides about student achievement helps the public, educators, and…

This document reports on research related to large-scale assessments for students with learning disabilities in the area of reading. As part of a process of making assessments more universally designed the authors examined the role of "readable and comprehensible" test items (Thompson, Johnstone, & Thurlow, 2002). In this research, they used think…

In 1998 and again in 2002, samples of eighth grade students in California were tested in reading as part of the state-level component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In each of these years, all eighth graders in the state were also required to participate in the state's accountability testing, which included the reading…

A study was designed to provide recommendations regarding the use of the achievement levels set in 1992 for reporting National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading results in 1994 and in future NAEP reading assessments. Two procedures were used: the Item Difficulty Categorization (IDC) procedure involved an evaluation of the…

This study was designed to answer two key questions about the fixed portions of the fourth, eighth, and tenth grade spring 2003 Idaho Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT) in Reading, Language Usage and Mathematics: (1) To what extent do test items exhibit substantive differences in functioning across student groups formed based on ethnicity and…

Designed as an overview of the 1979 and 1980 Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) in fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade reading, this report presents the results for each grade level along with performance comparisons between years and topic areas (using sources of information and reading in the social sciences, literature, and the…