[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 18, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2596-2598]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-1072]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION


National Assessment Governing Board; Information Collection 
Request

AGENCY:  National Assessment Governing Board; Department of Education.

ACTION:  Notice of Information Collection Activity; Request for 
Comment.

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SUMMARY:  In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 
3501 et seq.), this notice announced a proposed information collection 
request (ICR) of the National Assessment Governing Board (the Governing 
Board, or NAGB). The information collection is to conduct two research 
and validation support studies related to test development for the 
proposed Voluntary National Test (VNT) during Spring 2000. Before 
submitting the ICR to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the 
Governing Board is soliciting comments on the information collection as 
described below.

DATES:  Comments must be submitted on or before February 17, 2000.

ADDRESSES:  Submit written comments identified by ``ICR: VNT Research 
and Validation Support Studies (Option Year 2)'' by mail or in person 
addressed to: Ray Fields, Assistant Director, National Assessment 
Governing Boards, Suite 825, 800 North Capitol Street, N.W., 
Washington, DC 20002.
    Comments may also be submitted electronically by sending electronic 
mail (e-mail) to [email protected]. Electronic comments must be 
identified by the title of the ICR. No confidential business 
information should be submitted through e-mail. Comments sent by e-mail 
must be submitted as an ASCII file avoiding the use of special 
characters an any form of encryption.
    Information submitted as a comment concerning this document may be 
claimed confidential by marking any part or all of that information as 
confidential business information (CBI). Information so marked will not 
be disclosed except in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR 
Part 2. A copy of the comment that does not contain CBI must be 
submitted for inclusion in the public record. Information not marked 
confidential may be disclosed publicly by NAGB without prior notice.
    All written comments will be available for public inspection at the 
address given above from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, 
excluding legal holidays.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  Ray Fields, Assistant Director, 
National Assessment Governing Board, Suite 825, 800 North Capitol 
Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20002. Telephone (202) 357-0395; e-
mail:[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Copies of this ICR may be obtained from the 
contact person listed above.

I. Information Collection Request

    The National Assessment Governing Board is seeking comments on the 
following Information Collection Request (ICR).
    Title: Voluntary National Tests (VNT): Research and Validation 
Support Studies (Option Year 2)
    Affected Entities: Parties affected by this information collection 
are individuals and State, local, or Tribal SEAs or LEAs.
    Abstract: In order to comply with the mandates of PL 105-78, the 
National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) proposes to conduct two 
research and validation support studies. Congress vested exclusive 
authority in the Governing Board for test development for the proposed 
VNT. At the same time, Congress prohibited pilot testing and field 
testing of questions developed for the proposed VNT. No test question 
developed for the proposed VNT will be used in these research studied. 
Instead, test questions used for the National Assessment of Education 
Progress (NAEP) will be employed. This is to ensure that the 
prohibition on pilot and field testing is not violated, while still 
providing for research needed to answer questions related to test 
development.
    The data collected will serve two purposes: (a) Provide information 
on the feasibility of a calibration linkage between the proposed 
Voluntary National Test (VNT) and the National Assessment of Education 
Progress (NAEP) (more specifically--between a test designed to give 
individual results and a survey designed to report group results); and 
(b) provide information needed to inform policy and practice related to 
test accommodations for students with limited English proficiency, 
specifically, to help guide the development of an 8th grade mathematics 
test booklet in two languages (i.e., a ``dual language'' booklet in 
this case in English and Spanish).
    The two research studies will also assist NAGB in making three of 
the four determination required by Congress: (1) The extent to which 
test items selected for use on the tests are free from racial, cultural 
or gender bias; (2) whether the test development process and test items 
adequately assess student reading and mathematics comprehension in the 
form most likely to yield accurate information regarding student 
achievement in reading and mathematics; and (3) whether the test 
development process and test items take into account the account the 
needs of disadvantaged, limited English proficient and disabled 
students.
    The first study is directed toward establishing the feasibility of 
a calibration linkage between a test form resembling an individual test 
and a survey of group results--the National Assessment. Research 
questions to be answered include the following: What are the effects on 
the measurement of student performance of an individually administered 
test that shares a framework with NAEP but which differs somewhat from 
NAEP in content coverage, administration, and unit of analysis? It is 
possible to establish a strong link between the group-focused results 
of NAEP and such an individually administered test? What inferences can 
be supported by such a link?
    4800 students from Grade 4 and 4800 students from Grade 8 are 
expected to participate in this study. The 9600 students will be 
divided equally across three conditions.
    Students in the first condition will take a ``NAEP Special Form'' 
booklet, consisting of NAEP items constructed to be as parallel as 
possible to the proposed VNT forms. This parallelism would include 
content coverage, timing, and shape of the test information function 
(TIF), which has been proposed to be flatter than the TIF for NAEP. 
Because empirical information on each item is needed to construct a 
form with a specified TIF, the items would come from the previous NAEP 
administration in the respective subjects.
    Students in the second condition would take ``Extended NAEP'' 
booklets, which are based on blocks of items from the 2000 NAEP 
administration and would be constructed to be representative of the 
content and statistical specifications (TIF) of NAEP. The forms for 
Grade 8 mathematics would consist of six intact 15-minute blocks 
administered in two 45-minute sessions. The forms for Grade 4 reading 
would consist of four NAEP reading blocks, also administered in two 45-
minute sessions. (Because the reading blocks are timed at 25 minutes 
each, some items will have to be deleted to fit into the reduced 
testing time.) The administration of these forms would be

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under conditions proposed for the VNT. To avoid the circularity of 
linking the same items to themselves, the items used in the extended-
NAEP forms should be distinct from those used in the NAEP Special 
Forms.
    In the first two conditions of this proposed study, the two types 
of forms would be spiraled together and administered to equivalent 
samples of students. Because the NAEP Special Forms and the Extended-
NAEP forms would be administered under the same conditions, issues of 
administration, timing, and motivation become moot. If the content 
match between the NAEP Special forms and the simulated VNT forms could 
be made sufficiently close, a linking study between the two types of 
forms would approximate a linkage study between actual VNT forms and 
Extended-NAEP. If a calibration were successful, the resulting linkage 
interpretations would be in terms of student performance on NAEP when 
NAEP is given under VNT conditions.
    Students in the third condition differ from the other two in that 
they would be taking the ``NAEP Special Form'' under motivated 
circumstances. It is quite plausible that the same student would 
perform at a higher level under a motivated situation such as the VNT, 
where individual scores are obtained under a low motivation situation 
such as the NAEP. This differential effect of motivation could impact 
achievement level cut-points (among other things) in ways that cannot 
be assessed in the two conditions described above. Consequently, the 
third condition of this study involves paying students $1 for every 
item they answer correctly. This procedure is directly modeled after 
research conducted on motivational interventions for the NAEP. A 
comparison of item parameters and test characteristic curves for the 
NAEP Special Forms under motivated and unmotivated conditions would 
provide information on the differential impact of motivation and how to 
adjust results for any subsequent linking study between the VNT and 
NAEP.
    The second study involves a series of subtasks directed toward 
informing NAGB's inclusion and accommodation policies regarding LEP 
students. These tasks are:
    Subtask A. Writing an issues paper covering theory and research 
related to the development of a dual language test. This paper would 
inform procedures to be used in the translation of items into the 
second language (i.e., Spanish) (Subtask B).
    Subtask B. Using released and secure NAEP 8th grade mathematics 
items to construct simulated VNT-M test booklets (dual language and 
English-only versions). The English language version of this booklet 
will be the same as the one for the ``NAEP Special Form described 
earlier.
    Subtask C. Evaluating the psychometric equivalence of the dual 
language and English-only booklets via traditional quantitative 
analyses. Six hundred bilingual and LEP students will be recruited and 
randomly assigned to complete either the dual language or English-only 
version of the test booklet. Quantitative analyses will be conducted to 
examine the psychometric equivalence of the two test versions (mean 
differences; differential item functioning; correlations).
    Subtask D. Conducting focus groups of students immediately after 
they take the VNT-M to document students' overall experience with the 
two types of booklets. Sixty students will be recruited to do these 
focus groups, in order to obtain their insights and general reactions 
to the booklets.
    Subtask E. Conducting cognitive laboratory studies to obtain in-
depth information on the validity of the translation and about how 
students use the dual language test. An additional nine LEP and nine 
English-speaking students will be asked to participate in this study, 
in order to explore the performance of both Anglo and Hispanic LEP 
students to identify solution pathways that students choose to use.
    Subtask C through E will allow for a thorough investigation into 
the cognitive processes that bilingual and limited English proficient 
(LEP) students employ when using the dual language version of the VNT-
M. In addition, they will provide information about factors other than 
mathematical knowledge and problem-solving ability that may have an 
effect on their performance on the test.
    The five subtasks listed above will offer answers to the following 
research questions to examine the quality of the dual language test, 
taking into account several features of the items:
    Cognitive: Do students understand the native language version of 
the test questions as a vehicle for assessing mathematics? (Subtasks C, 
D, E)
    Content: Is the content of the native language version of the test 
questions the same as the English version? (Subtasks B, C, D, E)
    Format: What considerations should be given to how the test 
questions appear on the pages of the test booklet? (Subtasks A, B)
    Cultural: Is the native language version clear and acceptable to 
the various communities in the United States for whom this is the 
native language? (Subtasks A, B, C, D, E)
    Academic: Are the grammar and language structure used in the native 
language version correct? (Subtasks B, D, E)
    Scoring: What considerations need to be made for scoring dual 
langauge test booklets?

(Subtask A)

    Psychometric Equivalence: Is there a psychometric equivalence 
between the dual language version and the English only versions of the 
test? (Subtask C)
    A total of 10,128 students is expected to participate in the two 
studies (4800 4th graders and 4800 8th graders in the calibration 
linkage feasibility study; 510 LEP and bilingual students taking the 
dual language or English-only math test (from which there will be 60 
focus group participants); and 18 cognitive laboratory participants). 
These students will be recruited from 300 schools. Students in the 
motivated condition of the calibration linkage study, focus group 
participants and cognitive laboratory participants will receive a token 
monetary incentive. Also under consideration is a modest monetary 
inventive for each participating school.
    Burden Statement: Assuming a 2 hour burden for each of the 10,128 
students expected to participate in the two studies, a total of 20,376 
hours is estimated. An additional 300 hours of school burden (one hour 
per participating school) is expected, reflecting the time it would 
take to collect student background data for our research purposes. 
Participation in this study is voluntary. State, local, and non-public 
education agencies will not be mandated or required to participate.

II Request for Comments

    The National Assessment Governing Board solicits comments to assist 
it:
    (a) Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is 
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Governing 
Board, including whether the information will have practical utility;
    (b) Evaluate the accuracy of the Governing Board's estimates of the 
burden of the proposed collection of information;
    (c) Enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to 
be collected;
    (d) Minimize the burden of the collection of the information on 
those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate 
automated, mechanical or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of

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information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of 
responses.

III. Public Record

    A record has been established for this action. A public version of 
this record, including printed, paper versions of electronic comments, 
is available for inspection from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through 
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The public record is maintained at 
the National Assessment Governing Board, 800 North Capitol Street NW, 
Suite 825, Washington DC, 20002.

    Dated: January 12, 2000.
Roy Truby,
Executive Director, National Assessment Governing Board.
[FR Doc. 00-1072 Filed 1-14-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-M