Sept. 15, 2011
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The Nation's Report Card: Geography 2010, a report released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), is available in ERIC. The report presents results from the most recent NAEP geography assessment, given to a nationally representative sample of 7,000 fourth graders, 9,500 eighth graders, and 10,000 twelfth graders in public and private schools.
The NAEP results are reported as average scores on a 0 to 500 scale and as percentages of students scoring at or above three achievement levels: Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The scores can be compared to those from 1994 and 2001 to show how students' knowledge and skills have progressed.
Major findings from the 2010 report include:
- In comparison to the last assessment in 2001, average scores in 2010 were higher at grade 4 and not significantly different at grades 8 and 12.
- Gains for Black students from 1994 to 2010 contributed to a narrowing of the White-Black score gaps at grades 4 and 8.
- Gains for Hispanic students from 1994 to 2010 contributed to a narrowing of the White-Hispanic score gap at grade 4.
- The percentage of students performing at or above the Proficient level in 2010 was 21 percent at grade 4, 27 percent at grade 8, and 20 percent at grade 12.
- The lowest performing students made gains at all three grades.
The assessment is based on the Geography Framework, which specifies that the assessment should be organized around two primary dimensions: a content dimension, comprising questions about space and place, environment and society, and spatial dynamics and connections; and a cognitive dimension, with questions related to knowing, understanding, and applying geography content to real-world problems. Additional information about the geography assessment is available from http://nationsreportcard.gov/geography_2010/.
NAEP is administered and analyzed by the National Center for Education Statistics at the Institute of Education Sciences. For more information about the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, please see nces.ed.gov.
