Selecting the Samples for the NAEP Arts Assessment

The samples for the 1997 arts assessment were selected using a complex multistage sampling design that involved sampling students from selected schools within selected geographic areas across the country. The sample design had the following stages:

1. selection of geographic areas (a county, group of counties, or metropolitan statistical area);
2. selection of schools (public and nonpublic) within the selected areas; and
3. selection of intact classrooms of students (for the music and visual arts assessments) within each sampled school. To ensure random sampling of students with training in each arts discipline, criteria for sampling classrooms specified that the subject taught in each classroom selected should not be the subject being assessed (e.g., classes sampled for the visual arts assessment could not be visual arts classrooms; classes sampled for the music assessment could not be music classrooms). For the theatre assessment, students were sampled randomly from within eligible schools.

Each selected school that participated in the assessment and each student assessed represents a portion of the population of interest. Therefore, sampling weights are needed to make valid inferences between the student samples and the respective populations from which they were drawn. In addition, NAEP oversamples nonpublic schools and schools in which more than 15 percent of the student population is non-white. Sampling weights adjust for disproportionate representation due to such oversampling. In the analysis of student data and reporting of results, nonresponse weighting adjustments have been made at both the school and student level, with the aim of making the sample of participating students as representative as possible of the entire eligible eighth-grade population.

School officials advised assessment staff on SD/LEP accommodations necessary for individual students sampled for an assessment in a given arts discipline. Students for whom recommended SD/LEP accommodations could not be made were classified as ineligible for the assessment.

Participation rates of public and nonpublic schools, students, and teachers can be viewed in the 1997 School, Student, and Teacher Questionnaire Participation Rates table.

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Last updated 15 December 2003 (CC)