U.S. Department of Education 

NCES 2013-455 

National Assessment of Educational Progress 

An Overview of NAEP 

What is NAEP? 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the 

largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of 

what students in the United States know and can do in various 

subjects. Since 1969, NAEP has provided a common measure 

of student achievement across the country. The results are 

released as The Nation’s Report Card and are available for the 

nation, states, and in some cases, urban districts. NAEP is a 

congressionally mandated project administered by the National 

Center for Education Statistics (NCES), located within the U.S. 

Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. 

How is NAEP different from state assessments? 

NAEP serves a different role than state assessments. States have their own unique 

assessments which are designed to provide individual student data about achievement 

on different content standards. NCES administers the same NAEP assessment in every 

state. This provides a common measure of achievement that allows for comparisons of 

achievement to the nation and among states and participating urban districts. NAEP 

does not report results for individual students. 

Unlike state assessments, students, teachers, and principals who participate in NAEP are 

also asked to complete contextual questionnaires. This information provides a better 

understanding of students’ educational experiences and factors that may be related to 

their learning. To learn more about these questionnaires, visit http://nces.ed.gov/ 

nationsreportcard/bgquest.aspx. 

The NCES NAEP website provides more extensive information about the assessment: 

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard 

NAEP Tools on the Web provide quick and easy access to NAEP assessment data, 

previously administered NAEP questions, performance comparisons, and more: 

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/naeptools.asp 

Full copies of all reports are available on The Nation’s Report Card website: 

http://nationsreportcard.gov 
What subjects does NAEP assess?

Main NAEP assessments are conducted in a range of subjects with fourth-, eighth-, and 

twelfth-grade students across the country. Mathematics and reading are assessed every 

two years, and science and writing are assessed every four years. Other subjects are 

assessed periodically, including the arts, civics, economics, geography, technology and 

engineering literacy, and U.S. history.

Long-term trend NAEP measures student performance in mathematics and reading, and 

is designed to ensure comparability across the years. The long-term trend assessment 

makes it possible to chart educational progress since the early 1970s. The assessment is 

given to 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds every four years.

NAEP special studies, such as the High School Transcript Study, are conducted periodically 

in addition to main and long-term trend assessments. The National Assessment Governing 

Board, which sets NAEP policy, determines the assessment schedule and what content 

should be measured. To download a detailed PDF version of the assessment schedule, 

please visit http://www.nagb.org/newsroom/assessment-schedule.htm. 

What can schools and students expect 

when participating in NAEP?

 NAEP is administered to students during regular 

school hours. Students spend between 90 and 120 

minutes taking the assessment.

Each student is assessed in one subject area and is 

asked to provide contextual information, such as the 

amount of reading they do, the types of classes they 

take, and their experiences with technology.

Accommodations are provided for students with 

disabilities and/or English language learners.

Student results are confidential. All materials are 

brought to and taken from the school by NAEP 

representatives on assessment day.

Why is student participation important?

The participation of all selected students enables NAEP to obtain an accurate picture of 

how students are performing in the United States. Since NAEP is not designed to report 

results for individual schools or students, it is not necessary for every student in every 

school to take the assessment. Instead, NCES uses a sampling procedure to ensure that 

NAEP participants are representative of the geographical, racial/ethnic, and 

socioeconomic diversity of schools and students across the country. Each participating 

student represents hundreds of other students. Their participation is vital for valid 

information on student achievement to be collected and shared. Teachers, principals, 

parents, policymakers, and researchers all use NAEP results to assess student progress 

and develop ways to improve education across the country. 

How is NAEP using technology to measure and 

report the skills of a new generation of students? 

As computers and digital tools play an increasingly important role 

in today’s classroom, NAEP is advancing with technology-based 

assessments. The goal is to be paperless by the end of the decade. 

Through the following innovative assessments, NAEP is collecting 

new types of data that provide depth in our understanding of what 

students know and can do, including how they engage with technology 

to approach problem solving. 

TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING LITERACY (TEL) ASSESSMENT:

TEL is a new frontier for NAEP and large-scale assessment. It is a 

computer-based, cross-curricular assessment that challenges students

to perform interactive tasks and engage in solving problems within 

realistic scenarios. TEL gauges how well students understand and 

apply technology and engineering principles to real-life situations. To 

learn more about TEL, visit http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/tel. 

WRITING ASSESSMENT: The writing assessment is administered on a 

computer and asks students to respond to writing prompts delivered 

in multimedia formats, including short videos and audio. In addition 

to writing scores, assessment results provide information about the 

extent to which students engaged in certain actions on the computer 

as they responded to these tasks, such as thesaurus tool usage. 

Results and contextual information are available at http://nces.ed.

gov/nationsreportcard/writing. 

SCIENCE INTERACTIVE COMPUTER TASKS (ICTs): The NAEP science 

assessment includes ICTs that challenge students to solve scientific 

problems and perform experiments, often by simulation. ICTs 

provide students more opportunities than a paper-and-pencil 

assessment to demonstrate skills involved in doing science, without 

many of the logistical constraints associated with a natural or 

laboratory setting. The full library of released ICTs from the 2009 

assessment is available at http://nationsreportcard.gov/

science_2009/ict_tasks.asp.
 

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After each assessment, some NAEP questions are released to the 

general public along with data on how students performed on each 

question. The following are examples of NAEP questions and actual 

correct responses from students. 

4th Grade Reading 

For the following question, students read a passage from the story “Tough as 

Daisy,” which is about a young girl who has moved to a new school and must 

prove she is a good enough wrestler to be on the team. 

At the beginning of the story, when some of the boys point and laugh at Daisy, 

she thinks, “We’ll see about that.” What does this tell you about Daisy? 

8th Grade Science 

This multiple-choice question measures students’ performance in the Earth 

and space sciences content area. 

These funnels were filled with equal volumes of pebbles, fine sand, and coarse 

sand, as shown in the diagram below. The same amount of water was poured 

into each funnel. 

Which correctly lists the order in which the water passed through the funnels, 

from fastest to slowest? 

A Pebbles, fine sand, coarse sand 

B Pebbles, coarse sand, fine sand 

C Fine sand, coarse sand, pebbles 

D Coarse sand, pebbles, fine sand 

12th Grade Mathematics 

The following is a short constructed-response question from the algebra 

content area. 

If f(x) = x2

 + x and g(x) = 2x + 7, what is an expression for f(g(x)) ? 

Find us on: 

Get NAEP on the go with the NAEP Results mobile app! 

www.ed.gov ies.ed.gov 

This document was prepared for the National Center for Education Statistics under Contract No. ED IES 13 C 0025 with Hager Sharp.