2004 Bridge StudySeveral changes were made to the long-term trend assessment in 2004 to align it with best current assessment practices and with policies applicable to the NAEP main assessments. According to the new policy of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), reading and mathematics are to be assessed by both the long-term trend instruments and the main NAEP instruments, but science and writing will be assessed only in main NAEP. As a result, changes were needed to remove the sets, or blocks, of questions for science and writing, which had been intermixed with the reading and mathematics blocks in the long-term trend assessment instruments. The changes provided an opportunity to bring other aspects of the assessment up to date. Considerable progress in testing theory has been made since the late 1960s, when these assessments were first designed, and the 2004 administration provided an opportunity to bring these improvements to the long-term trend assessments. In addition, since 1996, main NAEP assessments have been providing accommodations to allow more students with disabilities and students who were not fluent in English to participate. Traditionally, the long-term trend assessments have not provided such accommodations. However, in 2004, it was possible to provide accommodations and assess a greater proportion of students. As a result of these changes, two assessments were given in 2004—a modified assessment that contained many changes from previous assessments, and a bridge assessment that was used to link the modified assessment to the 1999 assessment so the trend line could be continued. The modified assessment included the following changes:
In 2004, students were randomly assigned to take either the bridge assessment or the modified assessment. The bridge assessment replicated the instrument given in 1999 and used the same administration procedures. The modified assessment included the new items and modifications listed above. The results reported on this website use the data from the bridge assessment to maintain trend lines across years. The modified assessment will provide the basis of comparison for all future assessments, and the bridge will link its results back to the results of the past 30 years. Comparing the results of the modified and bridge assessments demonstrates that the link between the 2004 bridge and modified assessments successfully continues the trend line. Download the full long-term trend report for a complete discussion of the bridge study.
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