# National Household Education Survey

**2016 ( NHES:**  **201 6**  **) Full** **- scale Data Collection**  **OMB# 1850 -**  **0768 v.11 Part A** 

**April 201**  **5**ii **TABLE OF CONTENTS** Page JUSTIFICAT ION
................................ ................................ ................................ ...................... 1 A.1 Circumstances Necessitating Collection of Information
................................ ........... 1 A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data
................................ ................................ .................. 1 A.3 Use of Improved Information Technology
................................ ................................ 5 A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication
................................ ................................ .................. 6 A. 5 Collection of Data from Small Businesses
................................ ................................ 7 A. 6 Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection
................................ ...................... 7 A. 7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection
................................ ................................ 7 A. 8 Consultations Outside the Agency
................................ ................................ ............ 7 A. 9 Payments to Respondents
................................ ................................ .......................... 1 2 A. 10 Assurance of Confidentiality
................................ ................................ ..................... 1 2 A. 11 Sensitive Questions
................................ ................................ ................................ ... 1 3 A. 12 Estimated Response Burden
................................ ................................ ...................... 14 A. 13 Cost to Respondents
................................ ................................ ................................ .. 14 A. 1 4 Cost to the Federal Government
................................ ................................ ................ 1 4 A.1 5 Reasons for Program Changes
................................ ................................ ................... 1 5 A. 1 6 Publication Plans and Project Schedule
................................ ................................ ..... 1 5 A. 1 7 Approval to Not Display the Expiration Date for OMB Approval
........................... 15 A. 1 8 Exceptions to the Certification Statement
................................ ................................ . 15 **List of Tables** Table 1 Estimated response burden for NHES:201 6
................................ .............................. 1 4 **List of Exhibits** Exhibit 1 Surveys conducted under the National Household Education Surveys Program, by years administered: 1991 through 20 12
................................ ................................ ..... 3 2 NHES :201 6 schedule of maj or activities
................................ ................................ ... 151 **JUSTIFICATION NHES Program**  **- Request for Clearance**  The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection program of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) designed to provide descriptive data on the education activities of the U.S. population, with an emphasis on topics that are appropriate for household surveys rather than institutional surveys. Such topics have covered a wide range of issues, including early childhood care and education, children’s readiness for school, parents’ perceptions of school safety and discipline, before - and after
- school activities of school
- age children, participation in adult and career education, parents’ involvement in their children’s education, school choice, homesc hooling, and civic involvement. NCES received approval in September 2014 to conduct the full
- scale NHES in 2015 (OMB# 1850
- 0768 v. 10) but decided to delay data collection until 2016 to further refine the surveys and data collection processes and to better manage budget constraints. This request is to conduct NHES:2016 full scale data c ollection, as described in this submission. **A.1 Circumstances Necessitating Collection of Information**  The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA 2002 : 20 U.S. Code § 95 4 3 ) defines the legislative mission of NCES to collect, report, analyze, and disseminate statistical data related to education in the United States and in other nations
. The NHES is specifically designed to support this mission by providing a means to investigate education issues that cannot be adequately studied through the Center’s ins titution
-based data collection efforts. For example, some school
- age children are homeschooled rather than attending a public or private school
. There is no available sample frame that includes all of the homeschooling students across the United States
. Likewise, although attaining a postsecondary credential has become increasingly important for securing opportunities to get high
-return jobs in the United States in the 21st century, NCES has traditionally only collected data on postsecondary certificates and degrees awarded through credit
-bearing instruction in institutions of higher education that participate in Title IV federal student aid programs. These comprise only a portion of the subbaccalaureate education and training that American adults seek and c omplete in order to learn the skills they need for finding and keep ing good
-paying jobs. Itis efficient and economical to interview parents about their children’s participation in child care programs and family participation in school and other education activities through a household
-based approach rather than incurring the cost and nonresponse involved in enlisting schools, obtaining lists of parents, and sampling parents from those lists. Similarly, it is also most efficient to interview adults through a household
-based approach rather than trying to obtain lists from a myriad of private credential
- awarding bodies. Also, the household approach allows for inclusion of adults who do not participate in training or have a credential, providing a point of com parison
. Repeating the NHES:2012 child surveys will provide the first trend data available under the new NHES design. Tracking trends in education topics over time on a regular, repeating basis is a key research goal of the NHES program. Adding the adult e ducation component will provide the first publicly available adult education data from the NHES in over a decade, and provide detailed data about previously under measured non - degree credentials. **A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data**  The NHES:2016 data collection will provide policymakers and researchers with data on early childhood education, parent and fami ly involvement in education, homeschooling , and adult training and education that are not available elsewhere . Researchers nationwide rely on NHES data for important policy analyses. Survey data from the NHES have been used for a large number of descriptive and analytic reports and articles, including NCES education indicators, reports, and statistical abstracts ; publications of other Federal agencies; policy analyses; theses and dissertations; conference papers; and journal articles. A list of NHES publications issued by NCES can be found on the NHES website, http://nces.e d.gov/nhes
. **NHES Program**  NHES uses a two
- stage design in which sampled households complete a screener questionnaire to enumerate household members and their key characteristics. Within
-household sampling from the screener data determines which household member (s) receives which topical survey(s) . NHES typically fields 2 to 3 topical surveys at a time, although the number has varied across its administrations. Surveys are administered in English and in Spanish. Data from the NHES are used to provide national cross - sectional estimates on populations of special2

interest to education researchers and policymakers. Beginning in 1991, NHES was administered approximately every other year as a landline random
- digit
- dial (RDD) survey. During a period of declining response rates in all RDD surveys, NCES decided to conduct a series of field tests to determine if a change to self
- administered mailed questionnaire s would improve response rates. A feasibility test of the new design was conducted in 2009 followed by a field test in 2011. The field test results helped to inform the final design of a full
- scale NHES collection in 2012 (OMB# 1850
- 0768 v.9) , which included the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP) and the Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) surveys. **ATES Development** During the same period of time, NCES began supporting developmental work on new questionnaire items for federal household surveys on wo rk
-related education, training, and credentials for adults and out
- of
- school youth. The Interagency Working Group on Expanded Measures of Enrollment and Attainment (GEMEnA) is a collaboration among federal statistical agencies established by the OMB Office of Statistical and Science Policy, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Under Secretary of Education to improve federal household statistics on the attainment of non
- degree credentials such as industry
-recognized certifications, occupational licenses , and educational certificates. In 2012, GEMEnA’s commission expanded to include the development of new and revised measures of enrollment or participation in education and training for work. One of GEMEnA’s roles is to guide NCES’s development of a new household survey on these topics to support research and policy analysis. To achieve this purpose, NCES conducted focus groups, cognitive interviews, and two pilot studies (OMB# 1850
- 0803), first a two
- stage telephone survey and then a single
- stage self
- administered mail survey
. Detailed information and reports from these activities can be found at nces.ed.gov/surveys/gemena. In 2016, the NHES will field the first full
- scale administration of the Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES) , which will provide new measures of adults’ educational and o ccupational credentials, including count s of (1) adults who have an industry
-recognized certification or occupational license, including the number of such credentials, the type of work they are for, their perceived labor market value, and the role of education in preparing for them; (2) adults who have educational certificates, including the subject field of the certificate, its perceived labor market value, and its role in preparing for occupational credentialing ; and (3) adults who have completed an initial work experience program (such as an apprenticeship or internship ) , including characteristics of the program and its perceived labor market value
. **NHES Feasibility Study** One of NCES’s goals from the beginning of the GEMEnA project was to determine the feasibility of eventually incorporating a survey of adults back into the NHES. In 2014, NCES conducted a Feasibility Study testing the integration of an adult topical survey into NHES mail operations and processing ( OMB# 1850
- 0803). The NHES F easibility S tudy (NHES
-FS) included several experiments to inform the final design of the 2016 full
- scale NHES. Using one household survey platform for both child and adult surveys provides greater efficiency in the data collection and reduces overall national burden by maximizing the use of a single household sample draw. Before adding an adult survey back into the NHES it was important to test the feasibility of using a mail survey to screen households for both adults and children, and to test different approaches to collecting topical data from households (e.g., sampling either an adult or a child from the same household for topical follow up compared to sampling both and adult and a child for follow up). The NHES
-FS also included several other experiments to test approaches aimed toward decreasing unit and item nonresponse. The results of these experiments have informed the design of the NHES:2016. **Overview of NHES:2016 Target population** The NHES:2016 will include the ATES, the PFI, and the ECPP. Adults ages 16 to 65 who are not enrolled in grade 12 or below will be eligible for the ATES topical survey, and children from birth through 12 th grade who are ages 20 or younger will be eligible to be sampled household members for the child
- focused surveys
. The PFI targets f amilies of children and youth enrolled in kindergarten through 12 th grade or homeschooled for these grades, with an age limit of 20 years , while the ECPP targets families of children ages 6 or younger who are not yet enrolled in kindergarten. Adults knowle dgeable about the care and education of the sampled children respond for the surveys about children.3

This submission for clearance of NHES:2016 includes a number of letters and postcards for each stage of the study tailored for the screener instrument and each topical survey. It also includes respondent materials designed for a planned web survey experiment described in the section entitled NHES:2016 Experiments below. All English
language respondent contact materials are provided in Appendix 1. Their Spani sh translations are currently undergoing cognitive testing and will be included in the update to Appendix 1 by July 2015. **NHES:2016 Screener Instrument**  The household screener instrument was revised from the 2012 NHES to include a complete listing of all household me mbers rather than just of children in the household. The response rates for a 5
-person child
- only screener and a 10
-person all household member screener were found to be comparable in a small experiment conducted in conjunction with an ATES pilot test in 2013. The NHES
-FS used the 10
-person screener as part of its goal to evaluate the procedures needed to include an adult
- focused survey in NHES and included an experiment comparing response rate differences between a screener that asked for age mea sured in years versus a screener that asked for age measured as year and month of birth. Based on the results of this experiment, NHES:2016 will use the screener that asks for age as year and month of birth. English and Spanish versions of the screener are shown in Appendix 2. **NHES:2016 Topical Surveys** As shown in Exhibit 1, each administration of the NHES has included more than one topical survey. The NHES:2016 will include one adult
- focused survey (ATES) and two child
- focused topical surveys (PFI and ECPP ). The surveys are shown in Appendix 2, along with an addendum reflecting potential revisions based on recent cognitive interviews
. The planned NHES:2016 administration of the PFI and ECPP surveys is a repeat of the child
focused topics administered for th e first time in mail survey mode as part of NHES:2012. NCES decided to repeat these surveys in 2016 to establish the first trend data for the newly
- designed NHES. Tracking changes in the population over time is a key research goal of the NHES program. To develop ATES content, NCES under the guidance of GEMEnA has been developing and testing new survey items since 2009 , including conducting expert review, focus groups, cognitive test s and pilot tests
. English and Spanish versions of the PFI, ECPP, and ATES are shown in Appendix 2 along with an addendum showing proposed changes based on the results of cognitive interviews conducted in early 2016. **Exhibit 1.**  **Topical s urveys conducted under the National Household Education Surveys**  **P rogram, by**  **years administered: 1991** 

**– 20**  **12** Topical survey NHES survey administration 1991 1993 1995 1996 1999 1 2001 2003 2005 2007 2012 Early childhood education/ program participation √ √ √ √ √ √ Adult education √ √ √ √ √ √ School readiness √ √ √ School safety and discipline √ Parent and family involvement in education √ √ √ √ √ Homeschooling √ √ √ √ Civic involvement √ √ After
- school programs and activities √2 √ √ 3 √ Household library use √ 1 The NHES:1999 was a special end
- of
- decade administration that measured key indicators from the surveys fielded during the 1990s. 2 The After
- School Programs and Activities Survey of the NHES:1995 only asked about children in first through third grades. 3 The After
- School Programs and Activities Survey of the NHES:2001 also included items on before
- school programs. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES), 1991

–2012. **The Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey (PFI)** The PFI**,** previously conducted in 1996, 2003, 2007, and 20 12 , surveys families of children and youth enrolled in kindergarten through 12 th grade or homeschooled for these grades, with an age limit of 20 years, and addresses specific ways that families are involved in their children’s school; school practices to involve and support families; involvement with children’s homework; and involvement in education activities outside of school. Parents of4

homeschoolers are asked about their reasons for choosing homeschooling and resources they used in homeschooling. Information about child, parent, and household characteristics is also collected. To minimize response burden and potential respondent confusion, both enrolled and homeschool version s of the PFI que stionnaire were created for self administration. This submission includes both PFI
- Enrolled and PFI
Homeschooled instruments. **The Early Childhood Program Participation Survey (ECPP)**  The ECPP **,** previously conducted in 1991, 1995, 2001, 2005, and 2012, surveys families of children ages 6 or younger who are not yet enrolled in kindergarten and provides estimates of children’s participation in care by relatives and non
-relatives in private homes and in center
-based daycare or preschool programs (including Head Start and Early Head Start). Additional topics addressed in ECPP interviews have included family learning activities; out
- of

-pocket expenses for nonparental care; continuity of care; factors related to parental selection of care; parents’ perceptions of care quality; child health and disability; and child, parent, and household characteristics. **The Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES)** ATES pro vides means to investigate issues related to the prevalence and key characteristics of non
- degree credentials that cannot be adequately studied through the Center’s institution
-based data collection efforts. It targets non - institutionalized adults in the United States ages 16 to 65, who are not enrolled at grade 12 or below. The ATES will collect information on educational attainment, prevalence and characteristics of certifications and licenses and their holders, prevalence and characteristics of educational certificates and certificate holders, and completion and key characteristics of work experience programs such as apprenticeships and internships. Itwill also collect detailed employment and background information. **Ongoing Development of NHES:2016 Surve ys**  The NHES:2016 instruments and respondent contact materials are currently undergoing cognitive testing through Ju ne 2015. Results of this testing will likely lead to some changes designed to improve respondents’ understanding of the language used in the letters, postcards, and survey items. The documents in this submission, including instruments and contact materials will be updated accordingly by July 2015. The ongoing testing includes: Phase 1 Spanish language interviews for respondent contact materials and screener instrument

– The goal of this research is to test and revise as necessary the Spanish translation s of respondent contact materials including letters and postcards, the screener instrument, and a few items from ATES that had not been previously translated. Detailed information about these interviews can be found in the OMB generic clearance package #1850
- 0803 v.128. Phase 2 Spanish language interviews for topical questionnaires

– The goal of this research is to test and revise as nece ssary the Spanish translations of the topical instruments. Probing will focus on questions whose translations differ from the NHES:2012 administration, although all translation issues that arise will be evaluated. Detailed information about these interview s can be found in the OMB generic clearance package #1850
- 0803 v.131. Phase 3 interviews on contact materials for web experiment

– The goal of this research is to test and revise as necessary the language and Spanish translation s of contact materials for the web experiment described in the NHES:2016 Experiments section below . These interviews will be conducted in both English and Spanish. The OMB generic clearance request for these interviews is scheduled to be submitted at the end of April. PFI and ECPP interviews

– A series of cognitive interviews were conducted in early 2015 to test and revise a subset of items from the PFI questionnaires, a series of new and revised ECPP items, and changes to the format of the child
- focused questionnaire s to make them mo re comparable to AT ES
. Itincluded a test of items added to the PFI
- Enrolled instrument from the PFI
- Homeschooled instrument to better account for part
-time homeschoolers. NCES is still evaluating the results from this set of cognitive interviews. Detailed information about these interviews can be found in the OMB generic clearance package #1850
- 0803 v.121. Results from these interviews and potential revisions to the instruments are described in the addendum to Appendix 2
. ATES interviews
. – The ATES has undergone several revisions in response to prior qualitative research activitie s. S ince the last cognitive testing of the ATES instrument, however, several changes have been made5

that require additional testing. These include slight wording changes to simpli fy items , switching to asking about the “most important” certification rather than “the last” certification, changing from a grid format to a repeating series of questions about up to three certifications, and adding a new series of questions on work
experience programs. Detailed information about these interviews can be found in the OMB generic clearance package #1850
- 0803 v. 127. **NHES:2016 Experiments Web Experiment**  NCES is planning an experiment as part of NHES:2016 to evaluate response rates for a subsample of respondents requested to complete the screener and topical instruments over the internet. The web instruments are being developed using the paper and pencil versions submitted for clearance herein. Unlike the paper and pencil versions, however , skip patterns in the web instruments will be invisible to the respondent. This experiment will also test “on the fly” sampling between the screener and the topical stages of data collection. The functionality of the web interface will permit immediate sampling of a household member for a topical survey, and if the screener respondent is the sampled adult respondent or the most knowledgeable adult about the sampled child respondent, the web instrument will allow him or her to continue immediately to the topical survey. At any stage during the web experiment, respondents will be able to call the Census Bureau to receive a paper and pencil version of the survey. In addition, beginning at the point of the third follow up mailing for both the screener and the topical surveys, sampled web respondents will automatically receive a paper and pencil version of the survey and continue with paper and pencil follow
-up thereafter. Several key design features and the sample size of the web experiment are still under devel opment and will be described fully in the update to the documents in this submission that will be available by July 2015. The experiment is being designed to measure 1) overall web screener and web topical response rates, 2) demographic characteristics of web respondents versus pencil and paper respondents in the web sample, 3) the number and type of respondents who try to answer the survey on a smart phone, 3) the number of breakoffs at the screener and topical stages, and 4) the number of screener respondents with a sampled child in their household who indicated that they are not the most knowledgeable about the care and education of the sampled child. **Targeted Incentive Experiment** The NHES:2016 will also include an incentive experiment designed to examine the effectiveness of leveraging auxiliary frame data to target lower screener incentives to households that have been historically most likely to respond, regardless of incentive amount. Preliminary analysis of an experiment in the NHES:FS comparing a $0 incentive to a $5 incentive suggests that there are certain types of households that are less sensitive to screener incentives than others. This means that NCES can potentially reduce operational costs without introducing bias by targeting specific househo lds with a $2 incentive rather than a $5 incentive . For NHES:2016, NCES plans to create a model using data from the NHES:FS, the address ed
-based sample frame, and Census data to identify suitable households to target with a smaller incentive. Broadly, the model will identify households that meet one or both of the following criteria: (1) likely to represent overrepresented subgroups with high response propensity and (2) likely to be less sensitive to incentive value. **A.3 Use of Improved Information Technolo**  **gy** The paper and pencil instruments in the NHES:2016 will be collected for NCES by the Census Bureau using three complementary survey systems
- (1) Amgraf One Form Plus, (2) Docuprint , and (3) integrated Computer Assisted Data Entry (iCADE) , chosen for the ir efficiency and accuracy in the data collection process.
 **Forms Design.** Questionnaires will be created using Amgraf One Form Plus. Completed hardcopy forms can be processed by iCADE to capture responses through optical mark recognition (OMR) and keying from image (KFI). Questionnaires will be printed, trimmed , and stitched through an in
-house print on
- demand process using a Docuprint system which allows personalization , and the ability to tailor items to each specific respondent. The data from the questionnaires will be captured by the iCADE technology/software, which automatically extracts all check box entries (OMR) and captures and displays an image of all other entries to an operator for KFI.6

 **Image Pre processing.**  iCADE applies image preprocessing to the forms in their image format in order to correct any skewing at the time of scanning , and the iCADE software performs registration to align the individual questionnaire page template with the appropriate scanned image
. The scanner despeckles the image to remove unwanted pixels.
 **Data Capture.** iCADE reads the form image files, checks the presence of data, processes all check box fields through OMR , and presents an image of the handwritten fields to an operator for KFI.
 **Verification.** Extracted KFI data are subject to 100% field validation according to project specifications
. If a data value violates validation rules, the value is flagged for review by verifiers who interactively review the images and the corre sponding extracted data, and resolve validation errors.
 **Archiving.** Images will be scanned and archived to magnetic storage located on a secured server in case they are needed later. This eliminates the need to save paper copies of the completed questionnaires. T he NHES:2016 web experiment described above will be conducted to determine whether respondents access and respond to a web
-based screener instrument followed by a web
-based topical survey. The web
-based instruments are designed to minimize respondent burden by eliminating the cumbersome skip patterns required in the pencil and paper instruments. The instruments will be securely hosted on the NCES server and regular updates on incomplete cases will be securely transmitted to the Census Bureau for nonresponse follow up. **A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication**  **PFI and ECPP Population:**  Most other surveys do not address the topics covered in NHES for the populations of interest. For example, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) focuses on children in Head Start, whereas all children who have not yet started kindergarten are of interest in the ECPP Survey. Likewise, the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) focuses primarily on low income children and their program participation. The National Survey of Parents of Public School Students and Survey of Family and School Partnerships in Public Schools focus on parents of children in public schools . T hose whose children attend private schools or are homeschooled are not represented. Some s tudies, such as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study , Birth Cohort (ECLS
- B) ; the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study , Kindergarten Class of 1998
- 1999 (ECLS
- K); and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study
- Kindergarten Class of 2010
- 11 (ECLS
- K:2011) focus on single
- year cohorts that are followed over time and therefore do not provide nationally representative data on different age groups. The NHES surveys are designed to complement these longitudinal collections with more frequent and more inclusive cross
- sec tional data. **Survey Content:** Extant studies are limited in the content that they include relative to the goals of the NHES surveys. Studies such as the National Survey of America’s Families and the National Study of the Changing Workforce collect some information on child care or pro gram participation, but their primary emphasis is on other topics, and the depth of information on early care and education experiences is limited. The Head Start FACES project collects information on Head Start program participation and some family measures, but does not account for all nonparental care and programs. The Current Population Survey October Education Supplement is limited to a relatively small number of items on education participation and does not address the roles that parents play in their children’s school, schoolwork, and home activities. Also, no nationally representative study other than the NHES collects detailed data on homeschooling. **Current Estimates and Measuring Change Over Time.** Many of the extant surveys follow one cohort or periodic cohorts (e.g., the ECLS
- K , Head Start FACES, NSECE) or are no longer conducted (e.g., the National Survey of America’s Families, Family Involvement in Education: A National Portrait). As a result, they cannot meet the NHES goal of providing up
-to - dat e cross - sectional estimates and measures of change over time for all children who have not started kindergarten or for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, as is provided by the NHES. **ATES** Senior policy officials in the Departments of Education , Co mmerce, and Labor, foundations including the Gates Foundation and Lumina, and research organizations such as the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce have recognized that there is a lack of valid statistical information on prevalence of indust ry -recognized certifications and education certificates and have called for the development of new data sources. A series of7

meetings during the fall of 2009 launched a broad effort to begin to define and enumerate these credentials. NCES conducted a review of research literature and data collections since the work of a previous Interagency Committee in 2000, from which NCES developed a bank of existing survey items on certifications (completed 11/2009) and education certificates (completed 1/2010). This re search found no surveys that adequately capture d comprehensive data on the extent to which adult s participate in training or non - Title IV credit bearing education and attain non
degree credentials
. Due to these limitations in extant studies and the househo ld based sampling of NHES, NCES plans to conduct the PFI, ECPP, and ATES surveys under the NHES program . Appendix 3 cont ains a review of other surveys that cover topics similar to those in the NHES child surveys. The review shows that there is little overl ap between the NHES and these other surveys. Although GEMEnA’s work has resulted in the addition of survey items on certifications and licenses to the Current Population Survey and other federal surveys, ATES is the only one that collect s detailed information on the attainment of non
- degree credentials from the general U
. S
. adult population
. **A.5 Collection of Data from Small Businesses**  Not applicable. **A.6 Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection**  This request is for clearance of the NHES:2016 . Topics covered in the child
- focused survey s proposed f or this collection have been addressed in previous NHES administrations; repeating the surveys on a regular basis allows for analysis of trends over time. In the past, NHES has been administered on a biennial cycle. The last full NHES study was conducted in 2012. Rather than conduct a full scale NHES in 2014, NCES decided to field the NHES Feasibility Study to evaluate the procedures needed to incorporate an adult
- focused survey into the mail survey mo de. Due to funding constraints and in order to allow for developmental testing between cycles , NCES move d to a triennial NHES survey administration . T he next full scale NHES is projected to take place in 2019. NCES believes that this is the maximum periodi city that will allow NHES to maintain its purpose of tracking changes in key education estimates over time
. **A.7 Special Circumstances**  **of Data Collection**  None of the special circumstances listed in the instructions for completing the supporting statement apply to NHES:2016
. **A. 8**  **Consultations Outside the Agency** A Technical Review Panel (TRP) comprising leading experts in survey methodology was established to provide input to the redesign of the NHES system. Most members of the panel met in February 2010 to di scuss the proposed design for the field test, and their comments and suggestions led to changes reflected in this submission. **Technical Review Panel Participants and Their Affiliation at the Time of TRP Recruitment**  **Nancy Bates** U.S. Census Bureau 649 A. St. N.E. Washington, DC 20002 E
- ma il: nancy.a.bates@census.gov **Paul Beatty** National Center for Health Statistics Division of Health Care Statistics 3311 Toledo Road, Hyattsville, M D 20782 E
- ma il: pbeatty@cdc.gov **Johnny Blair** Survey Sampling and Methodology Abt Associates Inc. 4550 Montgomery Avenue Bethesda, MD 20814
- 3343 E
- ma il: Johnny_Blair@Ab tAssoc.com **Stephen Blumberg** National Center for Health Statistics 3311 Toledo Road Hyattsville, MD 20782 E
- ma il: stephen.blumberg@cdc.hhs.gov **Mick Couper** Survey Research Center University of Michigan ISR, 426 Thompson Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104 E
- ma il: mcouper@umich.edu8

**Don Dillman** Social and Economic Sciences Research Center, Professor Washington State University 133 Wilson Hall Pullman, WA 99164
- 4014 E
- ma il: dillman@wsu.edu **Robert Groves** Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research University of Michigan 426 Thompson Street Ann Arbor, MI 48106
- 1248 E
- ma il: bgroves@isr .umich.edu **Scott Keeter** Pew Research Center 1615 L. St. NW. Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036 E
- ma il: skeeter@pew

research.org **Kristen Olsen** Survey Research and Methodology University of Nebraska
- Lincoln 201 N. 13th St. Lincoln, NE 68588
- 0241 E
- ma il: kolson5@unl.edu **Roger Tourangeau** Joint Program in Survey Methodology University of Maryland 1218 LeFrak Hall, University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 E
- ma il: RTourango@survey.umd.edu **Gordon Willis** Division of Cancer Control / Population Sciences National Cancer Institute 6130 Executive Blvd, MSC 7344, EPN 4005 Bethesda, MD 20892
- 7344 E
- ma il: willisg@mail.nih.gov The content of the NHES:2016 topical surveys repeats the content developed for the NHES:2012 administration and prior NHES administrations. As a result, the PFI and ECPP surveys reflect the cumulative input of many experts in the field and past NHES Technical Review Panels. In order to ensure that the ECPP and PFI Surveys address important issues in the topical areas of interest and incorporate important emerging issues, the design phase of the 2012 study included consultations with experts in the substantive areas addressed in the surveys. These experts included persons in government agencies, academe, and research organizations. **Substantive Experts: ECPP and Their Affiliation at the Time of TRP Recruitment**  **Jerry West -**  **Mathem atica**  Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. 600 Maryland Ave., SW, Suite 550 Washington, DC 20024
- 2512 E
- ma il: jwest@mathematica
- mp r.com **Ann Collins**

**– Abt Assoc. Cambridge, MA**  Abt Associates Inc. 55 Wheeler Street Cambridge, MA 02138
- 1168 E
- ma il: Ann_Collins@abtassociates.com **Ron Haskins**

**– Brookings Institution and Casey**  **Foundation** The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036 E
- ma il: rhaskins@brookings.edu **Ivelisse Martinez -**  **Beck**
**– HHS Division of Child and**  **Fam ily Development**  Administration for Children and Families 370 L’Enfant Promenade, S.W. 7th Floor West, Room 7A011 Washington, D.C. 2044 7 E
- ma il: ivelisse.martinezbeck@acf.hhs.gov **Lynda Laughlin**

**– Census**  U.S. Census Bureau 4600 Silver Hill Road Suitland, MD 20746 E
- ma il: lynda.l.laughlin@census.gov

**Substantive Experts: PFI and Their Affiliation at the Time of TRP Recruitment**  **Richard Brandon**

**– Univ. of Washington**  Human Services Policy Center, Evans School of Public Affairs University of Washington 1107 NE 45 th St. Seattle, WA 98105 E
- ma il: brandon@u.washington.edu **Annette Lareau**

**– Univ. of Pennsylvania**  Department of Sociology University of Pennsylvania McNeil Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104 E
- ma il: alareau@sas.upenn.edu11

**Joyce Epstein**

**– The Johns Hopkins University**  Center for Social Organization of Schools 3003 N. Charles St., Suite 200 Baltimore, MD 21218 E
- ma il: jepstein@csos.jhu.edu **Lawrence Aber -**  **NYU** Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development New York University 82 Washington Square East New York, NY 10003 E
- ma il: lawrence.aber@nyu.edu As noted above, the AT ES is a product of ongoing work guided by GEMEnA, which has met monthly since October 2009 and consists of senior staff from the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Council of Economic Advisors, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, the Office of Statistical and Science Policy (OMB), and the Office of the Under Secretar y of Education. In addition, GEMEnA established an Expert Panel of substantive experts in the fields of workforce education, economic development, and non
- degree credentials that met in November of 2012 and March and December of 2014 to provide input on AT ES content. **S urvey and Methodology**  **Experts: GEMEnA Member Agency Representatives**  **Census Bureau** Stephanie Ewert **Bureau of Labor Statistics** Dori Allard Harley Frazis **National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics** Dan Foley John Finamore **Council of Economic Advisors** Jordan Matsudaira **OM B Office of Statistical and Science Policy**  Shelly Martinez **Departm ent of Education** 

**– Office of the Under**  **Secretary** Jon O’Bergh **National Center for Education Statistics** Sharon Boivin Lisa Hudson Kashka Kubzdela Sarah Grady Andy Zukerberg **S ubstantive**  **Experts: GEMEnA Expert Panel Members**  **Jim Van Erden**  Senior Policy Advisor National Association of State Workforce Agencies/ Information Technology Support Center Washington, DC **Evelyn Ganzglass** Director of Workforce Development CLASP Washington, DC **Parm inder Jassal**  Executive Director ACT Foundation Austin, TX **Morris Kleiner** Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Humphrey School of Public Affairs University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN **Jam es Parker**  Senior Research and Policy Associate Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy New York City, NY **Kent Phillippe** Associate Vice President, Research and Student Success American Association of Community Colleges Washington, DC **Kenneth Poole** CEO/President Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness Arlington, VA **Andrew Ream er**  Research Professor George Washington Institute of Public Policy George Washington University Washington, DC **Jesse Rothstein** Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA **Jeff Strohl** Director of Research Center on Education and the Workforce Georgetown Public Policy Institute12

Geo rgetown University Washington, DC **Michelle Van Noy** Researcher Heldrich Center for Workforce Development Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey New Brunswick, NJ **Holly Z anville**  Senior Research Officer Lumina Foundation Indianapolis, IN **A. 9**  **Payments to Respondents** The NHES:2003 included an extensive experiment in the use of small cash incentives to improve unit response. The experiment demonstrated that gains in respondent cooperation could be realized with rel atively modest cash incentives (Brick et al. 2006). Such incentives were used in NHES:2005 and NHES:2007. The NHES:2011 Field Test included an incentive experiment at the screener level testing the effect of including a $2 cash incentive on response rates compared to a $5 cash incentive in the initial screener mailing . The $5 screener was associated with higher response rates than the $2 incentive, so the $5 incentive was used in the NHES:2012
. Results from the NHES
-FS indicate that the $5 incentive is asso ciated with higher response rates than no incentive. We will continue with this approach in NHES:2016 and use a $5 cash incentive in the first screener questionnaire mailing. The NHES: 2012 included an incentive experiment at the topical level to further refine an optimal strategy for the use of incentive s in the NHES. For those households in which a child wa s selected as the subject of an ECPP or PFI questionnaire, cases that responded to the first or second mailing of the screener receive d a $5 cash incentive with the initial topical survey mailing
. Evidence from the 2011 Field Test indicated that topical response rates c ould benefit significantly by providing later screener respondents with a larger topical incentive. T o confirm this finding, NCES subsam

ple d late screener respondents (those responding to the 3 rd or 4 th questionnaire mailing) to receive either a $5 or $15 cash incentive with their first topical survey mailing
. The results from the NHES:2012 indicate that among later screener responders, th e $15 incentive was associated with higher response rates compared to the $5 incentive. Based on these findings, the same strategy is planned for NHES:2016 . NCES will send a $5 cash incentive in the initial topical mailing to cases that respond to the first or second screener mailing and a $15 cash incentive in the initial topical mailing to any cases that respond later than three days after the third screener mailing. As described above, the NHES:2016 will also include a targeted incentive experiment de signed to examine the effectiveness of leveraging auxiliary frame data to target lower screener incentives to households that have been historically most likely to respond regardless of incentive amount. Among the random subsample for the targeted incentive e xperiment, respondents will be placed in one of two treatments, depending on response propensity attributed to that address based on Census data and other commercially
- available auxiliary data appended to the sampling frame . One treatment will receive a $2 rather than a $5 screener incentive (higher response propensity, less sensitive to incentives) , and one treatment will receive a $7 rather than a $5 screener incentive (lower response propensity, more sensitive to incentives). The treatment and control groups will be compared to the control group in the main NHES sample which will receive the standard $5 incentive on the following dimensions: screener response rate (overall and by key subgroups); topical response rate; cost per unit (incentive + mailing costs only); demographic characteristics (from both frame and topical data); responses to key survey items; differences between respondents and nonrespondents in frame indicators used to target the incentives; and response quality among respondents
. Respondents who receive the $7 incentive for the screener will also receive a $7 incentive (rather than a $5 incentive) in the initial topical mailing, unless they respond to the screener later than three days after the mailing, in which case they will receive the $15 incentive comparable to the non
-treatment group. The required sample size for the targeted incentive experiment is still being calculated and will be described in the update to this document, which will be available by July 2015
. **A. 10**  **Assurance of C onfidentiality**  Respondents will be informed of the voluntary nature of the survey and of the confidentiality provision in the initial cover letter and on the questionnaires, stating that their responses may be used for statistical purposes only and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose except as required by law [ Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA 2002), 20 U.S. Code § 95 7 3 ].13

Additionally, all staff members and subcontractors working on the NHES and having access to the data are required to sign the NCES Affidavit of Nondisclosure. Notarized affidavits are kept on file by the contractor and submitted to NCES quarterly. In addition, all contractor staff members who have access to confidential data and work on the project more than 30 days are required to have a federal background check. **A. 11**  **Sensitive Questions** The NHES is a voluntary survey, and no persons are required to respond to it . In addition, respondents may decline to answer any question in the survey. Respo ndents are informed of the voluntary nature of the survey in the cover letter that accompanies the questionnaire, as well as on the actual questionnaire. At the same time, s ome items in the surveys may be considered sensitive by some respondents: **ATES :**  The ATES includes an experiment asking about earnings in two different ways. This information may be considered sensitive:
 Personal earnings in the past year (categorical) A measure of earnings is important because educational attainment is statistically associated with earnings , and the empirical properties of the survey measures may differ for people with different earnings levels. The American Community Survey (ACS) was the source for most of the AT ES employment and background items. It em response rates for earnings questions were reasonably high in the 2013 pilot test. The item response rate for personal earnings was 96.4 percent . **PFI and ECPP :**  Child development and education experts consider economic disadvantage and children’s disabilities to be important factors in children’s school experiences and their activities outside of school . As a result, the child survey s contain measures of these characteristics, including:
 Household income;  Receipt of public assistance in the fo rm of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC); and  Children’s disability conditions. Measures of household income and government assistance are important because access to early childho od programs by children at
-risk and the education involvement of families of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds is of interest to policymakers, child development specialists, and educators. These items are important in identifying children at risk and have been administered successfully in previous NHES studies. Respondents are also asked the age at which they first became a parent. This may be sensitive for parents in some situations. The 2012 response rates for these items were very high. F or total household income, the 2012 PFI survey had an item response rate of 95.4 percent. It em response rates for receipt of public assistance were also high: for Tem porary Assistance to Needy Families, 97.9 percent; for the Women, Infants, and Children Program, 97.7 percent; and for Food Stamps, 98.4 percent. In the 2012 mail survey, it is not possible to examine item missing data for child disability because of the multiple response list format of the question
. Missing data may indicate either unreported data or that the child does not have a disability. However, in prior NHES collections , response to this item was high : in the 2007 PFI the item response rates were over 99 percent. In the 20 12 PFI , the item response rate for age at which the child’s parent first became a parent to any child was 96
. 2 for the first parent reported and 96.0 for the second parent reported. **ECPP Survey:** In addition to the items above, the ECPP survey also includes questions about assistance to pay for child care. This measure is important to understand families’ and children’s access to early childhood programs. **PFI Survey:** The PFI survey includes items concerning children’s school performance and difficulties in school. Among thes e are:  Children’s school performance and difficulties, including school grades, grade retention, suspensions, and expulsions; and  Identification of children’s schools. It ems concerning school performance and difficulty are important to the PFI survey as co rrelates of parent and family involvement in children’s education
. These items were asked in the NHES:2012 PFI and item response rates14

for these items were high : 99
. 0 percent for children’s grades, 97
. 6 percent for out
- of
- school suspension, and 97
. 5 percent for expulsion. Another element of the surveys that may be sensitive to some parents is the identification of children’s schools. This feature allows analysts to link the NHES data to other NCES datasets containing additional information about schools, greatly enhancing the ability to examine the relationships between students’ and families’ experiences and the characteristics of schools. The item response rate for the identification of the child’s school was 97.0 percent in NHES: 2012
. **A. 12**  **Estimated Response Burden** The NHES:2016 will screen 200,000 households . An expected screener response rate of 70 percent and an address ineligibility 1 rate of 11 percent are assumed, bringing the total number of expected screeners to 124,600. From these completed screeners, it is expected that approximately 56 percent or 69,341 households will contain an eligible adult but no eligible children; approximately 27 percent or 34 ,167 households will contain an eligible adult and an eligible child; and approximately 0.4 percent or 534 households will contain an eligible child but no eligible adults (for example, children who live with grandparents above age 65) 2

. NCES is in the process of evaluating a number of sampling strategies designed to improve efficiency and reduce cost, which are described in this submission in Supporting Statement Part B. B ased on th e evaluation of the various sampling strategies , the final sample design will be selected and its description updated in document s in this submission by July 2015
. The response burden per instrument and the total response burden are shown in T able 1 . The administration times for the screener, adult questionnaires , and child questionnaires are based on practice administrations and past experience
. The expected number of respondents and number of responses are based on the expected numbers of completed surveys of each type, discussed in section B.1. 3 . The hourly rate of $ 2 1
. 50 is based on the average for all civilian workers from the March 2 01 3 National Compensation Survey (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t02.htm). For the NHES:2016 , a total of 30,373 burden hours are anticipated, resulting in a burden cost to respondents of appro ximately $ 653,020
. **Table 1. Estimated response burden for**  **NHES:2016** Interview forms Estimated time (minutes) Number sampled Anticipated Response Rate Estimated

Number of respondents Estimated

Number of responses Total time

(hours) Screener 8 2 00 ,000* 70 % 1 24 , 600 124 , 60 0 16 , 613 AT ES questionnaire 10 61,882 70% 43,317 43,317 7,220 ECPP questionnaire 20 9 , 695 75% 7 , 271 7 , 271 2 , 424 PFI questionnaire 20 16 , 464 75% 1 2 , 348 12 , 348 4 , 1 16 **Study Total 1**  **87,536 1**  **87,536 3**  **0,373** * Approximately 11 % of addresses will be returned by USPS as invalid, reducing the final sample size to 178 , 000 addresses
. **A. 1**  **3 Cost to Respondents**  There are also no recordkeeping requirements associated with NHES, and no costs to respondents beyond the time to participat e presented in table 1 above. **A. 1**  **4 Cost to the Federal Government**  The total cost of NHES:2016 to the federal government is approximately $ 11.8 million over a p eriod of 20 months. This includes all direct and indirect costs of the design, data collecti on, an alysis, reporting phases of the study, and creation of data sets.

1 Ineligible addresses are those that are undeliverable. Once a screener mailing for an address is returned as a postmaster ret urn (PMR), the address will be coded ineligible. 2 Percentages based on population proportions from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) of the Current Population Survey (CPS).15

**A.15 Reasons for Program Changes**  This is a revision of the NHES collection. The de crease in the estimated respondent burden as compared to that approved for NHES:201 5 results from NHES:201 5 having been planned to include four topical surveys (PFI , ECPP , CWS, and TWS ), while the NHES:2016 will include three topical surveys (PFI, ECPP, and ATES). The initially planned Credentials for Work Survey (CWS) and the pilot Training for Work Survey (TWS ) , have been combined for NHES:2016 into one, more time efficient ATES instrument. **A. 1**  **6 Publication Plans and Project Schedule**  Exhibit 2 presents the schedule of project activities for NHES:2016
. Based on the results of NHES:2016 , datasets, statistics, and reports will be produced . The following are the planned outcomes of the NHES:2016 :  A fully documented public
-use data set that will be available for download from the NCES website;  A codebook with weighted and unweighted frequencies of all variables ; and  First Look Reports that highlight key findings from the study. **Exhibit 2**  **. NHES:2016**  **schedule of major activities Task**  **Date of Scheduled Conduct/Completion** Survey Instruments Formatting and Printing November
- December, 201 5 Data Collection Begins (advance letter mailing) January 2 , 201 6 Data Collection Ends August 31 , 201 6 Public
-use data files released August 31 , 201 7 Restricted
-use data files released September 30 , 201 7 **A. 1**  **7 Approval**  **to Not Display the Expiration Date for OMB Approval**  The OMB authorization number and expiration date will be displayed on the questionnaire s and web screener
. **A. 1**  **8 Exceptions to the Certification Statement**  There are no exceptions to the certification statement.