The NAEP Economics Achievement LevelsNAEP assessment results provide information about what students know and can do (see the NAEP economics scale). Additionally, NAEP provides information about what students should know and be able to do. This information comes from the NAEP achievement levels, which are intended to measure how well students' actual achievement matches the achievement desired of them in different subjects assessed by NAEP. The National Assessment Governing Board, as directed by the NAEP legislation, has been developing achievement levels for NAEP since 1990. A broadly representative panel of teachers, education specialists, and members of the general public helps define and review achievement levels. As provided by law, the achievement levels are to be used on a trial basis and should be interpreted and used with caution. However, both the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Governing Board believe these performance standards are useful for understanding trends in student achievement. There are three achievement levels for each grade assessed by NAEP (4, 8, and 12): Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The following definitions apply to all subjects and all grades assessed by NAEP:
The committees associated with the development of the economics assessment made recommendations for preliminary descriptions of definitions of the three achievement levels to be used at grade 12. The committees combined the generic NAEP definitions of each achievement level with the cognitive category definitions and examples from the content outline of the assessment.
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