Author: Hilary R. Persky

Publisher: Department of Education

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13:

This book reports on the 1994 National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) assessment in geography for grades 4, 8, and 12. Students performance is summarized on a scale ranging from 0 to 500 with the achievement levels of Basic, Proficient and Advanced for each grade. Major findings for the nation include: (1) The Proficient level was reached by 22 percent of fourth graders, 28 percent of eighth graders, and 27 percent of twelfth graders; (2) At each grade level, roughly 70 percent of students were at or above the Basic level; (3) As students' geography scores increased, the complexity and sophistication of the geographic knowledge and skills they exhibited increased; and (4) Generally, students across grades in the higher percentiles exhibited greater abilities to work with a range of geographic tools, create maps based on tabular or narrative data, grasp processes and relationships, bring outside knowledge to bear on answering questions and analyze data. The book contains five chapters. Chapter 1, "NAEP 1994 Assessment in Geography," presents the overview of the NAEP 1994 geography assessment, including its content framework, design, and administration, along with sample questions and student responses from the assessment. Chapter 2, "Geography Results For the Nation and Regions," provides overall average scale score results for the nation, regions, and subgroups of students. Chapter 3, "Geography Achievement Levels," describes student performance in terms of achievement levels. Chapter 4, "Contexts in Which Students Learn Geography," describes contextual factors related to students' geography achievement. Chapter 5, "What Students Know and Can Do in Geography," describes the specific abilities that students demonstrated on the NAEP 1994 geography assessment and reports student performance in different content areas of geography. Three appendices and extensive tables and figures accompany the text. (EH)