IDENTIFIERS *National Assessment of Educational Progress

This study examines the linguistic features of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test items and investigates the significance of language-related variables for NAEP's assessment in the content area of mathematics. The continuing increase in the number of language minority students in classrooms nationwide has brought the issue of language impact on assessments to the forefront. The goals of this study were to explore whether NAEP data confirmed that language background significantly affects mathematics item performance, and to discover whether revisions of the language in the items had an effect on student performance. The study was conducted in two phases: (1) analysis of extant data from the NAEP main assessments in 1990.and 1992, and (2) field research in which linguistically complex items and their revised counterparts were administered to eighth grade students i