What Does Participation in this Study Look Like?

This study will focus on privately-funded homeschool students. Students who are enrolled in a virtual public school program are not eligible to be included in the research.

BJU Press Homeschool currently has the infrastructure in place from the 2022 study to continue on with the 2023 study. Other vendors are welcome to participate, but they will need sufficient time to implement code changes and processes to get the testing results to NHERI blindly. This takes time and budget. We’re nearing the end of a budget year. Talking with other vendors for the 2023 study is possible, but it’s highly unlikely they’ll have the budgetary and staffing resources to implement this in time for Spring ordering.

When ordering paper & pencil tests, a test administrator must be selected. Depending on your state laws, you may qualify to become a test administrator for either your child or a group of homeschool students. This is a simple process that requires either a high school diploma or post-secondary degree. Please note, the qualifications are sent by the publisher of Iowa form E, Riverside Insights, not BJU Press Homeschool.

Families will order their assessments using your organization’s specific link. Once the order has been completed, a random number will be generated and assigned to that student’s assessment. The family will receive one survey per child for whom a test was ordered. That child’s random number is associated with the survey results.

Though your state organization and NHERI will have access to the raw data, no one will have access to any student identifiable information or family information. The data will only be used for the purposes for which we’ve collected it; state-specific and national homeschool research.

Your student’s identity will be secure with BJU Testing. Students’ identifying information will not be attached to their scores when passed to your state organization, if testing through your state organization, and NHERI for analysis and interpretation. Demographic information such as age, grade, number of years homeschooled, etc. will be used to interpret the data, but any other identifying information will be removed prior to being provided to the researchers.

The survey must be completed before the student’s test is completed. This is done to remove any bias.

No, the ordering parent will receive a survey associated with each individual student that a test was purchased for. In this example, if the parent wants all 3 childrens’ scores to be included, a survey must be completed for each student.

No, surveys received after the test has been completed cannot be accepted.

No, any test scores associated with a late survey will not be included.

No, no personal contact information will be shared with the states. All testing information is confidential.

A family can certainly back out of the study before submitting the survey. Once the survey has been submitted, it is not possible to trace it.

NHERI is a trusted and long-withstanding leading research group that has served state organizations across the nation, homeschool families, scholars, the media, courts, policymakers, and the general public for over 30 years.

In order for the information to be useful, an assessment that is nationally normed and compares students of every educational option (homeschool, private school, and public school) must be used. The IOWA form E is the most up-to-date normed standardized test that fits this.

Currently, our vendor is BJU Press Homeschool, who does not offer the CAT. The CAT was last normed in 1986. It is not being updated, and it is not viewed as reliable. The test is cheaper because no development or updating is happening with it. 

The IOWA form E was last normed in 2017.