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Benchmarking

Benchmarking

How do Groups of Interest Perform on NAEP?

Benchmarking studies are studies in which NAEP is administered to groups of interest, for example, college freshmen. Determining the average NAEP performance of this group would then provide a "benchmark" score that can be considered as one of the reference points on the NAEP scale. A benchmarking study in combination with findings from other studies in the Program of Preparedness Research can assist the Board in determining the areas of the NAEP scale that indicate preparedness. A benchmarking study of Texas college freshmen was planned, and it had the support of the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education and the cooperation of nine Texas higher education institutions.

The Governing Board sponsored a small scale pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of benchmarking NAEP with entering college freshmen. The Board and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collaborated to implement this small-scale pilot, which was carried out by Westat, the NAEP sampling and administration contractor to NCES. The data collection phase for the pilot ended on October 15, 2010. Of the eligible sample of 1,234 students, only 255 attended a NAEP session, for an overall response rate of 20.7 percent. Based on the pilot results, the decision was made not to proceed to the operational phase of this study.

No other benchmarking studies were conducted for the 2009 NAEP preparedness research.

Benchmarking Methodology

Based on the pilot results, the decision was made not to proceed to the operational phase of this study. So, this methodology was not pursued.

Benchmarking Key Conclusions

Based on the pilot results, the decision was made not to proceed to the operational phase of this study. So, no results are available.