Arts

The arts assessment framework specifies that students’ arts knowledge and skills be measured in four disciplines: dance, music, theater, and visual arts. In 2008 and 2016, NAEP assessed students in music and visual arts. Survey questionnaires, administered to students, teachers, and school administrators who participate in an arts assessment, are used to collect and report contextual information about students’ learning experience in and out of the classroom.

• Arts Assessment Framework

  Read the arts assessment framework.

• Arts Content Areas

  Learn more about the content of the arts assessment and how student performance is measured.
  

• Sample Arts Questions

  Explore sample arts questions, scorer comments, and the percentage of students nationwide who answered each question correctly.
  

• Survey Questionnaires

  See questionnaires that collect information about students’ arts experiences in and out of the classroom. Questionnaires are given to students, teachers, and school administrators.

Student performance on the NAEP arts assessment is presented in two ways: scale scores and percentiles.

• Scale scores represent the average performance of students who took the arts assessment. Scores are aggregated and reported for the nation and groups of students based on gender, race/ethnicity, etc.
• Percentiles show score results for students performing at lower (10th and 25th percentiles), middle (50th percentile), and higher (75th and 90th percentiles) levels on the reporting scale.

Item maps illustrate how specific arts knowledge and skills correspond to the 25th and 75th NAEP percentiles. Item maps answer the question, “What assessment questions were likely to be answered correctly by lower- and higher-performing students?"

• Scale Scores

  Read about the arts scale.
  

• Visual Arts Item Map

  Use the NAEP Item Maps tool to see how specific visual arts knowledge and skills correspond to the 25th and 75th performance percentiles.

• Music Item Map

  Use the NAEP Item Maps tool to see how specific music knowledge and skills correspond to the 25th and 75th performance percentiles.