This report on teachers' academic preparation and professional development, the amount of emphasis science instruction receives in schools, student course taking, and the availability of school resources that support science learning is intended primarily for policy makers, school administrators, and educators concerned with state- or school-level policies. Data is drawn from the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and results are presented using the students as the unit of analysis. Appendises present an overview of procedures used for the NAEP 1996 Science Assessment and standard errors. Contains 14 figures and 25 tables. (DDR)

This compendium presents eighth grade cross-state results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1996 state assessment in science along with national and regional results from the NAEP 1996 National Assessment in science without interpretations of the data. Tables of cross-state information for the variables discussed in the NAEP 1996 Science Report Card for the Nation and States and the NAEP 1996 Science State Report are included. This document is intended as a companion to the Science Report Card and the Science State Report. The results for the nation and regions of the country are based on the nationally and regionally representative samples of public and nonpublic school students assessed as part of the national NAEP program. Chapter 1 presents the results for the nation, the four regions, and the participating jurisdictions in the context of the overall average science scale scores and scale scores for the fields of science and the type of school. Chapter 2 presents scale score information for selected population subgroups. Chapters 3 through 7 contain results broken down by background information collected from students, teachers, and school characteristics. (DDR)

This technical report on the National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1996 State Assessment Program in Science provides an overview of the design, implementation and analysis of the educational assessment including details of sampling design, field administration, preliminary data analysis, and reporting of state results. This report also provides details on the background of the development of the 1996 instrument for science, sample design and selection, state and school cooperation, processing and scoring assessment materials, creation of the database and database products, weighting procedures and variance estimation, theoretical background and philosophy of NAEP scaling procedures, data analysis and scaling for the science assessment program, and conventions used in reporting the results. (DDR)