Evaluation of NAEP 12th Grade Reading and Mathematics Frameworks and Item Pools as Measures of Academic Preparedness for College and Job Training

Evaluation of NAEP 12th Grade Reading and Mathematics Frameworks and Item Pools as Measures of Academic Preparedness for College and Job Training: Comprehensive Report

HUMRRO, 2015, GRADE 12

Evaluation to determine if some 8th grade NAEP content is better suited for assessing academic preparedness for job training, and an overall content comparison of NAEP with U.S. Department of Labor occupational information and the ACT WorkKeys assessment.

This report describes a multi-method evaluation of the 12th grade NAEP reading and mathematics frameworks and item pools as measures of academic preparedness for job training. Given that the Governing Board's preparedness research for college has progressed further than the research for job training, this 2015 effort sought to expand the investigation of NAEP as a measure of preparedness for job training. Based on indications from previous preparedness studies, this study also included 8th grade NAEP reading and mathematics frameworks and items pools to determine whether some 8th grade NAEP content is better suited than the 12th grade NAEP for assessing academic preparedness for job training.

This report also provides an overview of two additional studies on the job training front. One study investigated the content alignment between NAEP and the ACT WorkKeys assessment, a job skills assessment that helps employers select, hire, train, develop, and retain a high-performance workforce. A second study compared the levels of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required for relevant NAEP reading and mathematics content to the KSAs required for relevant job training content, as indicated in the U.S Department of Labor’s occupational information network, or O*NET.

Content Alignment: 

O*NET | WORKKEYS | JOB TRAINING | READING | MATHEMATICS