NCES Blog

By Lauren Musu-Gillette

The National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) is well-known as one of the key resources for information about the academic progress and performance of U.S. students. But did you know that NAEP also collects other important data on students’ behaviors and attitudes? For example, NAEP Long-Term Trend reading assessments have asked students how often they read for fun. Using these data, we can see how the frequency of reading for fun differs by student age and over time. These data can also be examined in conjunction with students’ reading assessment scores on NAEP.

A higher percentage of younger students reported that they read for fun almost every day than older students. In 2012, about 53 percent of 9-year-olds reported that they read for fun almost every day, compared to 27 percent of 13-year-olds and 19 percent of 17-year-olds. Conversely, about 27 percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun compared to 22 percent of 13-year-olds and 11 percent of 9-year-olds. For 17-year-olds, the percentage who reported that they read for fun almost every day decreased over time, from 31 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2012.

Percentage of students reading for fun almost every day, by age: 1984 and 2012

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Long-Term Trend Reading Assessments. See Digest of Education Statistics 2014, table 221.30.

There were also differences in reading assessment scores by frequency of reading for fun. In 2012, students who were 17-years-old and read for fun almost every day had higher scores (302 points) than those that never or hardly ever read for fun (272 points). The same was true for 13-year-olds (276 vs. 249 points, respectively) and 9-year-olds (226 vs. 208 points, respectively). Note, however, that comparisons like these between reading assessment scores and frequency of reading for fun cannot be used to establish a cause-and-effect relationship. 

Other questions about students’ reading behaviors and attitudes are included on the main NAEP assessments. For example, in addition to a question about the frequency of reading for fun, the 2015 questionnaire included the following items:

• About how many books are there in your home?
• How often do you talk with your friends or family about something you have read?
• Reading is one of my favorite activities (with response options: this is not like me, this is a little like me, and this is a lot like me)

Questions like these can be compared with students’ assessment scores to examine how attitudes, behaviors, and achievement may be related.

By Lauren Musu-Gillette

In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted October 20th as World Statistics Day. Over 130 countries and areas of the world joined in the inaugural World Statistics Day celebration. October 20, 2015 is the second time World Statistics Day will be celebrated. This day is intended to highlight the important contributions statistics and statisticians make to a wide array of national and international activities.  The theme for World Statistics Day 2015 – “Better data. Better lives.” – reflects the important role that statistics plays in helping businesses, governments, and the public make informed decisions.

Careers in statistics are varied, and cover a range of areas that include politics, economics, finance, and governance. As the interest in data-driven decision making grows, so too does the demand for statisticians.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the job growth for statisticians will be much faster than the average overall job growth. As a reflection of that growth, the number of degrees conferred in the field of mathematics and statistics has increased over the last decade. For example, in 2002–03 there were 12,505 bachelor’s degrees conferred in mathematics and statistics and in 2012–13, there were 20,453 degrees conferred in this field. During this period, the number of degrees conferred also increased for master’s degrees (from 3,620 to 6,957), and doctor’s degrees (from 1,007 to 1,823). 

Bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and statistics conferred by postsecondary institutions, by sex of student: 2002-03 through 2012-13SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). See Digest of Education Statistics 2014, table 325.65.

While the number of degrees conferred in mathematics and statistics increased for both males and females over the past decade, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees conferred to males in 2012–13 was higher than the percentage for females (57 vs. 43 percent). Similarly, a higher percentage of master’s degrees in this field were conferred to males in 2012–13 (60 vs. 40 percent), and the same was true for doctor’s degrees (71 vs. 39 percent).

By collecting and disseminating data on the number of degrees conferred in different fields, NCES can help researchers, policy-makers, and the public to determine whether the changing demands of the workforce are likely to be met.

To find out more information about World Statistics Day, please visit https://worldstatisticsday.org/

By Lauren Musu-Gillette

Join us in celebrating World Statistics Day on October 20, 2015!

While most of NCES’ products are designed for education stakeholders such as teachers, school administrators, and researchers, the Kids' Zone is designed for use by some of our most important consumers - students! The Kids' Zone contains features such as a dice game that helps students learn about probability and statistics, links to online tools where students can find information on their school, and a graph creation tool.

According to the graph above, which element forms the second greatest portion of the earth’s crust?

1. Oxygen
2. Silicon
3. Aluminum
4. Iron
5. Calcium

The above question is an example of an 8th grade mathematics question that can be answered using the Dare to Compare feature of the NCES Kids' Zone. This feature of the NCES Kids' Zone allows you to choose questions (5, 10, 15, or 20) from different subject areas (Civics, Economics, Geography, History, Mathematics, or Science) asked at different grade levels depending on the subject selected (4th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, or 12th grade). After you answer the questions, your answers are scored and you can see how you compared to students in that age range either nationally or internationally. For example, on this question 87 percent of U.S. 8th graders selected the correct response of Silicon on a past NAEP assessment.

Create a Graph can be used by teachers and students. In fact, Create a Graph is one of the most frequently visited pages on the NCES website. Using this tool, you can create bar graphs, line graphs, pie graphs, area graphs, or you can choose an XY plot in order to plot individual points. For example, everyone in class could answer a series of questions using Dare to Compare. Then, the class could calculate what percentage of the class responded correctly to certain items and graph that percentage along with the percentage of students who answered the question correctly in different regions of the U.S., or different countries. We encourage you to join us in celebrating World Statistics Day on October 20, 2015 by planning a fun activity, such as the one suggest above, using the NCES Kids' Zone. Follow us on Twitter @EdNCES for other ideas and announcements about World Statistics Day.

There are a lot of fun features on the NCES Kids' Zone – so go ahead and explore! 

By Heidi Silver-Pacuilla

Categories of educational attainment – or highest degree earned – are often used in social science research as an indicator of a person’s knowledge and skills. This measure is objective and readily available, easily understood by survey respondents as well as by consumers of research and survey data, strongly tied to policies (such as those promoting high school graduation and college completion rates), and widely used in the labor market by employers. Moreover, strong connections between educational attainment and positive life outcomes, such as employment, earnings, health, and civic engagement, are well established.

Yet, this measure is an imprecise indicator of the amount of knowledge and skills an individual acquired during the years of education it took to complete the degree. It also masks variation across individuals and programs of study. In addition, adults continue to acquire skills and knowledge from a variety of sources and activities over their lifetimes after completing a degree, while on the job or through employer-sponsored training, continuing education, family and household management, hobbies and interests, etc. Adults also lose fluency with skills that are not put to regular use.

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey[i] provides direct measures of working-age adults’ cognitive skills based on their performance on literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving tasks set in real-life contexts. Performance is reported on a scale of 1-5 for literacy and numeracy and a scale of 1-3 for problem solving. It pairs these measures with a background questionnaire that asks about the use of skills at work and in daily life, work history, and other social, behavioral, and demographic indicators.

Percentage of adults age 16 to 65 at each level of proficiency on the PIAAC literacy scale, by highest level of educational attainment: 2012

# Rounds to zero
NOTE: Percentages of adults age 16 to 65 by highest level of educational attainment appear in parentheses. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), 2012.

By Amy Ho and Chelsea Owens

Teachers and principals form the foundation of the educational process, but there are not a lot of nationally representative, federal data on the characteristics and experiences of these key staff. The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) has historically been one of the few federal data collections in this area. Since 1987, SASS has provided important data to researchers, policymakers, and leaders in education to help answer critical questions about schools, teachers, principals, and students, including:

• How well prepared and supported are new teachers?
• What do principals consider as their most important goal?
• Have the characteristics of the principal and teacher workforces changed over time?

As one of the few large scale data collection efforts that directly surveys teachers and principals about their own experiences, SASS has historically served as the nation’s primary data source for information on topics such as teachers’ and principals’ demographic characteristics, teachers’ attitudes about teaching and school conditions, teachers’ qualifications, and teachers’ experiences with intimidation or violence in schools.

While the information obtained from SASS has been an important contribution to our knowledge of the experiences of teachers and principals, changes to the structure of teaching and the desire to better align multiple data collection efforts led NCES to revise the existing SASS instrument. Therefore, NCES launched a redesign of this data collection effort. The new survey, the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) includes updated features such as revised questions that can address pressing topics in the field (e.g., use of technology in the classroom, teacher and principal evaluations, etc.).

The NTPS will be administered for the first time this coming school year (2015-16) and will be conducted every two years in order to provide timely data. There are four main components of the NTPS: School Questionnaire, Principal Questionnaire, Teacher Listing Form, and Teacher Questionnaire. In late August, NCES sent out the first questionnaires to a sample of American schools. A school selected to participate in the NTPS will represent thousands of other schools in the nation.

The School Questionnaire asks about length of the school day, how difficult it is to fill vacancies at the school, and community-service graduation requirements. The Principal Questionnaire asks questions on parent/guardian involvement, how often problems such as bullying and gang activities occur, how teachers and principals are evaluated, and principals’ top goals. The Teacher Questionnaire includes questions involving teacher satisfaction, use of instructional software in the classroom, teacher perceptions of autonomy, and experiences during teachers’ first year of teaching.

The participation of teachers, principals, and other staff in the 2015-16 NTPS will greatly help policymakers and leaders in education improve schools for our students, teachers, and principals by looking at the current status of these issues.  In the United States, the needs and challenges facing each school are sometimes vastly different, but the NTPS data can provide information for meeting these needs.

For more information on NTPS, please visit: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/overview.asp.