The visual arts portion of the assessment measured students' ability to respond to and create visual art. A combination of multiple-choice and constructed-response questions that explored students’ abilities to analyze and describe works of art and design were used to assess the responding process. The average responding score for visual arts was reported on a scale of 0 to 300.

Average responding scale score and percentile scores in NAEP visual arts at grade 8: 2008

Findings

• While the overall average responding score in visual arts was set at 150, percentile scores ranged from 104 for the lowest-performing students (10th percentile) to 193 for the highest-performing students (90th percentile).

Additional information about responding scale scores is available in Interpreting Arts Results.

Explore sample questions in the NAEP Questions Tool.

To see the types of questions students at the 25th and 75th percentiles would be likely to answer, see the visual arts item map.

It is important to note that because music and visual arts are two distinct disciplines, results are reported separately and cannot be compared.

NOTE: View complete data with standard errors.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2008 Arts Assessment.