What Does the NAEP Science Assessment Measure?NAEP measures the science knowledge and skills of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students. According to the NAEP science framework, developed by the National Assessment Governing Board, students are to be assessed in science in the following areas:
Based on this framework, the science assessment measures and reports subscales for three major fields of science, as follows: The assessment also measures three characteristic elements of knowing and doing science, as follows: Each exercise in the science assessment measures one of the elements of knowing and doing science within one of the fields of science (for example, scientific investigation in the context of physical science). In addition, one-half of the students in each school received one of three hands-on tasks and related questions. These performance tasks require students to conduct actual experiments using materials provided to them, and to record their observations and conclusions in their test booklets by responding to both multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. For example, students at grade 12 might be given a bag containing three different metals, sand, and salt and asked to separate them using a magnet, sieve, filter paper, funnel, spoon, and water and document the steps they used to do so. Examples of hands-on tasks used in previous assessments are available in PDF format in the NAEP Questions Tool. The science framework specifies the amount of assessment time to be devoted to each of the three components for grades 4, 8, and 12. For more detailed information about the objectives of the science assessment, explore the NAEP Science Framework (available in HTML or 502K PDF file).
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