About the NAEP Science Assessment
NAEP Science Assessment Administration
The 2024 NAEP science assessment at grade 8 was administered on Microsoft Surface Pro tablets and, for the first time, on Chromebooks. Both device types were supplied by NCES. Students were able to interact with the Surface Pro tablets or Chromebooks via touchscreen, with an attached keyboard. Students using a Surface Pro also had access to a stylus provided by NCES. A bridge study was conducted to evaluate potential effects of changing the assessment device from Microsoft Surface Pro to Chromebook. Technical details about the device transition are available in the 2024 NAEP Digital Device Bridge Study for Science at Grade 8.
The digitally based science assessment (DBA) provided students with a variety of onscreen tools to help them interact with the assessment such as zooming capability, different contrast settings, and elimination of response choices. At the beginning of the assessment session, students viewed an interactive tutorial that provided the information needed to take the assessment; for example, the tutorial explains how to progress through questions, how to indicate answers for selected-response questions, and how to use onscreen tools effectively when answering questions. The interactive nature of the tutorial allowed students to familiarize themselves with the digital delivery system before beginning the actual assessment.
At grade 8, trend performance dates to 2009. In 2024, the science assessment was administered digitally for the second time, having transitioned from a paper-based assessment to DBA in 2019. For technical details about the NAEP transition to digitally based assessment, see the science transition and mode evaluation study.
In addition to standalone questions, the science DBA included interactive, scenario-based tasks (SBTs) that were designed to engage students in scientific investigations involving the use of science inquiry skills and application of scientific knowledge to solve real-world problems. Each SBT is comprised of a sequence of connected questions (e.g., selected-response and constructed-response) that are related to a single scenario. Although questions within an SBT are conceptually connected, each task is designed to enable students to progress to completion even if they provide partial or incorrect responses to one or more questions. Individual task questions are designed so that students with a partial understanding could still provide a response and students who answer a question incorrectly still have an opportunity to answer subsequent questions correctly.
A total of 12 question blocks, comprised of 10 discrete question blocks and 2 SBTs, were administered in the NAEP 2024 science assessment. Each of the discrete question blocks contained 15 to 18 questions forming 30 minutes of testing time per block. Each SBT contained five questions and was a 15-minute block. The SBT blocks were administered together to form a 30-minute unit of testing time. Students were assessed with two 30-minute question sections (either 2 discrete question blocks or 1 discrete question block and 1 SBT block), for a total of 60 minutes of testing time.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education and is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation's students know and can do in select subjects. The NAEP science assessment measures students’ knowledge of three broad content areas—Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth and Space Sciences—and four science practices—Identifying Science Principles, Using Science Principles, Using Scientific Inquiry, and Using Technological Design. These four practices describe how students use their science knowledge by measuring what they are able to do with the science content. Results for the 2024 science assessment at grade 8 are reported for the nation.