Given the importance of large-scale assessments to educational policy conversations, it is critical that subpopulation achievement is estimated reliably and with sufficient precision. Despite this importance, biased subpopulation estimates have been found to occur when variables in the conditioning model side of a latent regression model contain…

To find population proficiency distributions, a two-level hierarchical linear model may be applied to large-scale survey assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The model and parameter estimation are developed and a simulation was carried out to evaluate parameter recovery. Subsequently, both a hierarchical and…