Developers of NAEP have substantially changed the mix of item types on assessments, decreasing the numbers of multiple-choice questions and increasing the numbers of short and extended constructed-response questions. At the same time, researchers have noted unacceptably high student nonresponse rates. These rates seem to vary with student characteristics like gender and race, and they potentially confound NAEP reports, analyses, and subsequent conclusions. The small-scale, exploratory study, which is qualitative in nature, offers insights for setting future studies. Future studies might include quantitative analysis of existing NAEP data sets to determine whether observed patterns of association between omissions and student or item characteristics hold up over larger numbers of students and items than were included in this study.
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