IMPLICATIONS OF MARKET-BASKET REPORTING FOR ACHIEVEMENT-LEVEL SETTING

In this article, I discuss ways in which reporting National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in terms of a market basket of tasks would affect achievement-level reporting. After reviewing curre nt NAEP reporting and achievement-level setting procedures, 3 market-b asket variations are described. Ways in which achievement-level standa rds would be set, interpreted, and validated are then discussed. The c onclusions are as follows: (a) the structure of the market-basket repo rting scale can be exploited to simplify a key step in the standard-se tting process, namely mapping item-or booklet-level judgments to the r eporting scale; (b) the more transparent meaning of market-basket scor es, in contrast to scaled scores and behavioral descriptions, clarifie s the limitations of NAEP performances as evidence about the range of student proficiencies and accomplishments that the public's and educat ors' interests may span; and (c) market-basket reporting approaches th at enable individual students to take a full market-basket set of item s simplify data-gathering and analysis for validity studies of achieve ment-level set-points and interpretations.