2015-16 NATIONAL POSTSECONDARY 

STUDENT AID STUDY (NPSAS:16)

Field Test Institution Contacting 

and Enrollment List Collection

Supporting Statement Part B & C

(OMB # 1850-0666 v.12)

Submitted by

National Center for Education Statistics

U.S. Department of Education

March 2014
iii

Contents

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods..............................................................1

1. Respondent Universe .......................................................................................................................................... 1

a. Institution Universe ..................................................................................................................................... 1

b. Student Universe .......................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Statistical Methodology....................................................................................................................................... 1

a. Institution Sample ........................................................................................................................................ 1

b. Student Sample ............................................................................................................................................. 3

3. Institutional Contacting ...................................................................................................................................... 9

4. Tests of Procedures or Methods.....................................................................................................................10

5. Reviewing Statisticians and Individuals Responsible for Designing and Conducting the Study ..........10

6. Other Contractors’ Staff Responsible for Conducting the Study ..............................................................11

C. Information Collected on Enrollment Lists...................................................................................13

D. References......................................................................................................................................15

Tables Page

7. NPSAS:16 field test estimated institution sample sizes and yield ............................................................ 3

8. NPSAS:16 preliminary full-scale institution sample sizes and yield......................................................... 3

9. Weighted false positive rate observed in baccalaureate identification, by sector: NPSAS:08.............. 5

10. Expected student sample sizes and yields for the NPSAS:16 field test................................................... 7

11. Preliminary student sample sizes and yields, NPSAS:16 full-scale........................................................... 8

Figures Page

1. Flow chart of institutional contacting activities.......................................................................................... 9

1

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

This submission requests clearance for the 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16) 

field test institution contacting, enrollment list collection, and list sampling activities. Materials for student 

contacting, and the student record abstraction and student survey will be submitted in a separate package, to 

be delivered in the fall of 2014. Specific plans are provided below.

1. Respondent Universe

a. Institution Universe

To be eligible for NPSAS:16, an institution will be required, during the 2014–15 academic year for the field 

test and the 2015-16 academic year for the full-scale, to: 

 Offer an educational program designed for persons who had completed secondary education;

 Offer at least one academic, occupational, or vocational program of study lasting at least 3 months 

or 300 clock hours;

 Offer courses that are open to more than the employees or members of the company or group 

(e.g., union) that administered the institution;

 Be located in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico;1

 Be other than a U.S. Service Academy; and

 Have a signed Title IV participation agreement with the U.S. Department of Education.

Institutions providing only avocational, recreational, or remedial courses or only in-house courses for their 

own employees will be excluded. The five U.S. Service Academies are excluded because of their unique 

funding/tuition base.

b. Student Universe

The students eligible for inclusion in the NPSAS:16 sample are those who are enrolled in a NPSAS-eligible 

institution in any term or course of instruction between July 1, 2014 and April 30, 2015 for the field test and 

between July 1, 2015 and April 30, 2016 for the full-scale who are: 

 Enrolled in (a) an academic program; (b) at least one course for credit that could be applied 

toward fulfilling the requirements for an academic degree; (c) exclusively non-credit remedial 

coursework but who the institution has determined are eligible for Title IV aid; or (d) an 

occupational or vocational program that required at least 3 months or 300 clock hours of 

instruction to receive a degree, certificate, or other formal award;

 Not currently enrolled in high school; and

 Not enrolled solely in a GED or other high school completion program.

2. Statistical Methodology

a. Institution Sample

The NPSAS:16 field test and full-scale institution samples will be selected in a different manner than has been 

done in the three previous NPSAS studies. The field test institution frame will be constructed from the 

IPEDS:201213 header, Institutional Characteristics (IC), Completions, and Full-year Enrollment files.2 The 

 

1

Institutions in Puerto Rico were not eligible for NPSAS:12.

2 A preliminary sampling frame has been created using IPEDS:2011-12 data, on which frame counts in table 7 are based. The frame 

will be re-created with the most up-to-date data prior to both the field test and full-scale sample selections.
2

full-scale institution frame will be constructed a year later from the IPEDS:2013-14 header, Institutional 

Characteristics (IC), Completions, and Full-year Enrollment files. Creating a separate institution frame for the 

field test and full-scale studies carries the advantage of having a more accurate and current full-scale 

institution sample since the frame will be constructed using the most up-to-date IPEDS files. Also, freshening 

the institution sample will not be needed since we will be using the most up-to-date institution frame 

available. So that we do not burden them with both field test and full-scale data collections, we will remove 

from the field test frame any large systems (reporters) and individual institutions likely to be selected with

certainty (i.e., probability of selection equal to one) for the full-scale.3 Also, we will remove field test sample 

institutions from the full-scale frame and later adjust the weights for the full-scale sample institutions so that 

they represent the full population of eligible institutions. 

For the small number of institutions on the frames that have missing enrollment information, we will impute 

the data using the latest IPEDS imputation procedures to guarantee complete data for the frames. Then, a 

statistical sample of 600 institutions will be selected from the field test frame and about 2,000 institutions will 

be selected from the full-scale frame. We will select institutions for both the field test and full-scale studies 

using stratified random sampling with probabilities proportional to a composite measure of size,4 which is the 

same methodology that we have used since NPSAS:96. Institution measures of size will be determined using 

full-year enrollment and baccalaureate completions data. Using composite measure of size sampling will 

ensure that the full-scale target sample sizes are achieved within institution and student sampling strata while 

also achieving approximately equal student weights across institutions. We will purposively subsample 300 of 

the 600 field test institutions to allow for some flexibility in the sample, such as excluding institutions unlikely 

to participate based on past experience. 

The institutional strata will be the ten sectors that were used for NPSAS:12, which are based on institutional 

level, control, and highest level of offering:

 Public Less-Than-2-Year

 Public 2-year

 Public 4-year non-doctorate-granting

 Public 4-year doctorate-granting

 Private for-profit less-than-2-year

 Private for-profit 2-year

 Private for-profit 4-year

 Private nonprofit less-than-4-year

 Private Nonprofit 4-Year Non-Doctorate-Granting

 Private nonprofit 4-year doctorate-granting

Further refinement of the ten sectors may be deemed necessary for the full-scale in order to target specific 

types of institutions that are not being captured sufficiently with the current ten sectors or to adapt to the 

changing landscape in postsecondary education. For example, the private for-profit 4-year sector could 

possibly be split into two strata based on academic offerings.

For the field test and full-scale, we expect to obtain overall 97 and 99 percent eligibility rates, respectively, and 

at least an overall 85 percent institutional participation (response) rate. The eligibility and response rates will 

likely vary by institutional strata. Based on these expected rates, the estimated institution sample sizes and 

sample yield by the ten institutional strata (described above) for the field test and full-scale are presented in 

tables 7 and 8, respectively. 

 

3 There is a small chance that certain institutions may be selected for both the field test and full-scale studies, such as small systems.

4

Folsom, R.E., Potter, F.J., and Williams, S.R. (1987). Notes on a Composite Size Measure for Self-Weighting Samples in Multiple 

Domains. Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods of the American Statistical Association, 792-796.
3

Within each institutional stratum, additional implicit stratification will be accomplished by sorting the 

sampling frame by the following classifications: (1) historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) 

indicator; (2) Hispanic-serving institutions (HSI) indicator;

5

(3) Carnegie classifications of postsecondary 

institutions;6(4) the Office of Business Economics (OBE) Region from the IPEDS header file (Bureau of

Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce Region);7(5) state and, for states with large 

systems, e.g., the SUNY and CUNY systems in New York, the state and technical colleges in Georgia, and 

the California State University and University of California systems in California; and (6) the institution 

measure of size. The objective of this implicit stratification will be to approximate proportional 

representation of institutions on these measures.

Table 7. NPSAS:16 field test estimated institution sample sizes and yield

Institutional sector Frame count1 Number sampled Number eligible List respondents

Total 7,278 300 290 247

Public less-than-2-year 256 5 5 4

Public 2-year 1,046 11 11 9

Public 4-year non-doctorate-granting 348 110 106 95

Public 4-year doctorate-granting 338 0 0 0

Private nonprofit less-than-4-year 256 6 6 4

Private nonprofit 4-year non-doctorate-granting 973 125 122 102

Private nonprofit 4-year doctorate-granting 609 21 20 17

Private for-profit less-than-2-year 1,637 8 7 5

Private for-profit 2-year 1,030 5 5 4

Private for-profit 4-year 785 9 9 7

1

Institution counts based on IPEDS:2011-12 header files.

NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. 

Table 8. NPSAS:16 preliminary full-scale institution sample sizes and yield

Institutional sector Frame count1 Number sampled Number eligible List respondents

Total 7,278 2,000 1,980 1,683

Public less-than-2-year 256 22 22 19

Public 2-year 1,046 376 375 332

Public 4-year non-doctorate-granting 348 180 179 162

Public 4-year doctorate-granting 338 338 337 295

Private nonprofit less-than-4-year 256 20 19 15

Private nonprofit 4-year non-doctorate-granting 973 325 325 277

Private nonprofit 4-year doctorate-granting 609 268 266 222

Private for-profit less-than-2-year 1,637 70 67 49

Private for-profit 2-year 1,030 120 117 93

Private for-profit 4-year 785 280 273 218

1

Institution counts based on IPEDS:2011-12 header files.

NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. 

b. Student Sample

Although this submission is not for student data collection, the sample design for the field test is included 

here because part of the design is relevant for list collection, and the sampling of students from the 

enrollment lists will likely have to begin prior to OMB approval of the field test student data collection. 

 

5 A Hispanic-serving institutions indicator is no longer available from IPEDS, so we will create an indicator following the logic that 

was previously used for IPEDS. 

6 We will decide what, if any, collapsing is needed of the categories for the purposes of implicit stratification.

7

For sorting purposes, Alaska and Hawaii will be combined with Puerto Rico in the Outlying Areas region rather than in the Far 

West region.
4

Student Enrollment List Collection

To begin NPSAS data collection, sampled institutions are asked to provide a list of all their NPSAS-eligible 

undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the targeted academic year, covering July 1 through June 30. 

Since NPSAS:2000, institutions have been asked to limit listed students to only those enrolled through April 

30. This truncated enrollment period excludes students who first enrolled in May or June, but it allows lists to 

be collected earlier and, in turn, data collection to be completed in less than 12 months. When evaluated 

during NPSAS:96, the abbreviated schedule missed only about three percent of the target population, and 

weighting can account for the minimal lack of coverage. 

Given the short time frame for the NPSAS:16 field test, institutions with continuous enrollment will be asked 

to include students enrolled only through March 31, instead of April 30, to expedite data collection.8In order 

to re-evaluate the impact of the truncated enrollment period, i.e., April 30 instead of June 30, we will request 

that the date first enrolled at the institution be included on the lists and that some field test institutions 

provide lists with students enrolled through the end of June. We will not select student samples from these 

later lists, but will use administrative data and frame data from the lists to conduct a bias analysis to determine 

if there are differences between May/June2enrollees and all other students. If this analysis shows that there 

are differences, we will modify our approach prior to the full-scale list collection.

Similar to past NPSAS studies, the following data items will be requested for NPSAS-eligible students 

enrolled at each sample institution: 

 Full name 

 Social Security number 

 Student ID number (if different from SSN) 

 Student level (undergraduate, masters, doctoral-research/scholarship/other, doctoral-professional 

practice, other graduate)9

 Undergraduate degree program9

 Date of first enrollment

 Date of birth

 Class level of undergraduates

 Potential baccalaureate recipient indicator

 Major or CIP code

 Contact information

Additionally, the following data items will be requested specifically during the field test to determine the 

completeness of the data institutions are able to provide:

 Veteran status

 GPA

 Number of credits accumulated

 Account status (past due, etc.)

 Race/ethnicity

 Gender

 First-time graduate student indicator

Institutions can only indicate veterans who self-identify or who are known to be receiving veteran’s benefits, 

but NCES will continue to investigate the option of working with Veterans Affairs (VA) to identify veteran 

students. GPA, number of credits accumulated, and account status may be used to help identify baccalaureate 

 

8 All institutions will be asked to include students enrolled through April 30 in the full-scale.

9 We will ask for both student level and undergraduate degree program in the field test and consider condensing them into one field 

for the full-scale study.
5

recipients, as described below. Race/ethnicity, gender, and date first enrolled at the institution will be used to 

check for bias when not including students on the enrollment lists enrolled in May and June, as described 

above. The first-time graduate student indicator will help us explore the feasibility of a possible future study 

of graduate student persistence.

Baccalaureate Identification

NPSAS:16 will serve as the base year data collection for the 2016/17 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal 

Study (B&B:16/17) and will be used to qualify students for cohort membership. To that end, we will ask 

institutions that award baccalaureate degrees to identify students who are expected to receive the 

baccalaureate degree by June 30 of the NPSAS year (2015 for the field test; 2016 for the full-scale). Instead of 

waiting until June for institutions to positively confirm degree award to these students, we will request that 

enrollment lists include an indicator (B&B flag) of cohort eligibility for students who have received or are 

expected to receive the baccalaureate degree during the NPSAS year. In addition, we will request an indicator 

of class level for undergraduates (first year, second year, third year, fourth year, or fifth year). Based on the 

NPSAS:08 experience, we estimate that about 64 percent of the fourth and fifth year students will be 

baccalaureate recipients during the NPSAS year, as will about 6 percent of the third year students.

If a majority of the 4-year institutions are able to provide GPA, number of credits accumulated, and account 

status, we will create a model to test the ability of these variables to predict actual baccalaureate receipt, based 

on interview responses. If these variables can be collected on lists and used to predict baccalaureate receipt, 

we can potentially use them in full-scale sampling to better identify students to be sampled as potential 

baccalaureate recipients.

As shown in table 9, the percentage of students, initially flagged as potential baccalaureate recipients, who do 

not actually receive their bachelor’s degree in the NPSAS year (i.e., the false positive rate) is expected to be 

high. Therefore, the NPSAS sampling rates for potential baccalaureates and other undergraduate students will 

be adjusted to yield the appropriate sample sizes, after accounting for the expected false positive and false 

negative rates by sector. 

Table 9. Weighted false positive rate observed in baccalaureate identification, by sector: NPSAS:08

Institutional sector False positive rate (weighted)

Public 4-year non-doctorate-granting 34.7

Public 4-year doctorate-granting 27.2

Private nonprofit 4-year non-doctorate-granting 22.3

Private nonprofit 4-year doctorate-granting 20.7

Private for-profit 4-year 32.9

Student Stratification

The student sampling strata for the field test will be:

 Baccalaureate STEM majors

 Baccalaureate business majors

 Baccalaureate teacher majors

 All other baccalaureate students

 Other undergraduate students

 Masters students

 Doctoral STEM majors

 Doctoral other majors

 Other graduate students
6

Several student subgroups will be intentionally sampled at rates different than their natural occurrence within 

the population due to specific full-scale analytic objectives. We anticipate that the four following groups will 

be oversampled in the field test:

1. Baccalaureate STEM majors

2. Baccalaureate teacher majors 

3. Doctoral STEM majors 

4. Undergraduate students at all award levels enrolled in for-profit institutions

In addition, because of their sheer number, we anticipate that baccalaureate business majors will be undersampled. Sampling business majors in proportion to the population would make it difficult to draw inferences 

about the experiences of baccalaureates more broadly. 

In the field test, we will investigate the possibility of identifying federal financial aid applicants or recipients 

prior to student sampling. If this is feasible then, in the full-scale, we could stratify students by financial aid 

application status, Pell Grant or Direct Loan receipt, or Pell Grant or Direct Loan amount. This additional 

stratification for sampling may help the poststratification weighting adjustment, which is typically done using 

Pell Grant and Direct Loan control totals.10 To determine feasibility, NCES will talk with Federal Student Aid 

(FSA) about obtaining student data from CPS, Pell, and/or Direct loan files prior to sampling. Timing of 

when the relevant data are available from FSA may be an issue. We will explore how best to combine the 

financial aid strata with the other strata mentioned above, and we will look at design effects. 

Sample Sizes and Student Sampling

Based on past experience, NCES expects to obtain, minimally, 95 percent eligibility rates and 70 percent 

student interview response rates overall and in each sector. The expected student sample sizes and sample 

yield are presented in table 10 for the field test. The field test will be designed to sample about 4,500 students, 

which is similar to NPSAS:12. Table 11 does not show sample sizes adjusted for false positives and false 

negatives, but a large percentage of the field test sample will be comprised of potential baccalaureates in order 

to obtain a sufficient sample yield for the B&B field tests. The NPSAS field test sample size of graduate 

students is small due to the large baccalaureate sample size. 

To meet the truncated field test schedule, students must be selected by mid-May. Like past NPSAS field 

tests, the 3,000 student respondents to the NPSAS:16 field test will be sufficient to test the data collection 

instruments. However, in order to also reach a good representation of students across the ten sectors, the 

number of participating institutions needs to be at least 150. If more than 150 lists are received by mid-May, 

only 150 will be sampled. Limiting the sampling to 150 institutions will increase the sample size for each 

institution, making the Student Records burden closer to what it will be in the full-scale.

Students will be sampled on a flow basis as student lists are received. Stratified systematic sampling 

procedures will be utilized. Sample yield will be monitored by institutional and student sampling strata, and 

the sampling rates will be adjusted early, if necessary, to achieve the desired sample yields.

The student sampling procedures implemented in the field test will be as comparable as possible to those 

planned for the full-scale study, even though simpler procedures would suffice for the field test alone. 

Quality Control Checks for Lists and Sampling 

The number of enrollees on each institution’s student list will be checked against the latest IPEDS full-year 

enrollment and completions data. The comparisons will be made for each student level: baccalaureate, 

undergraduate, and graduate. Based on past experience, we recommend only counts within 50 percent of nonimputed IPEDS counts will pass QC and will be moved on to student sampling. We will re-evaluate these 

checks after the field test for use in the full-scale study.

 

10 In NPSAS:12, poststratification caused an increase in bias and design effects. Accounting for financial aid in the sampling 

stratification may help avoid these issues for NPSAS:16 poststratification.
Table 10. Expected student sample sizes and yields for the NPSAS:16 field test

Institutional sector

Sample students Eligible students Responding students

Responding 

students per 

responding 

institution1

Total

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students Total

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students Total

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students

Total 4,511 1,695 2,616 200 4,286 1,610 2,486 190 3,000 1,127 1,740 133 12

Public less-than-2-year 123 0 123 0 109 0 109 0 67 0 67 0 16

Public 2-year 445 0 445 0 407 0 407 0 270 0 270 0 29

Public 4-year nondoctorate-granting 951 501 429 21 910 476 414 20 669 337 317 14 7

Public 4-year doctorategranting 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Private nonprofit less-than4-year 149 0 149 0 142 0 142 0 90 0 90 0 21

Private nonprofit 4-year 

non-doctorate-granting 969 506 432 31 921 478 414 29 692 345 323 21 7

Private nonprofit 4-year 

doctorate-granting 948 442 379 127 907 421 366 121 693 304 285 86 42

Private for-profit less-than2-year 249 0 249 0 236 0 236 0 132 0 132 0 25

Private for-profit 2-year 61 0 61 0 59 0 59 0 38 0 38 0 10

Private for-profit 4-year 616 246 349 21 594 235 339 20 350 141 219 12 50

1

The number of responding students per participating institution is based on the 247 list respondents shown above in table 7, rather than on the 150 institutions from which students will be 

selected.

NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. 
Table 11. Preliminary student sample sizes and yields, NPSAS:16 full-scale 

Institutional sector

Sample students Eligible students Responding students

Responding 

students per 

responding 

Total institution

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students Total

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students Total

Baccalaureates

Other 

undergraduate 

students

Graduate 

students

Total 126,316 51,277 53,986 21,053 120,000 48,713 51,287 20,000 84,000 34,099 35,901 14,000 50

Public less-than-2-year 680 0 680 0 608 0 608 0 382 0 382 0 20

Public 2-year 21,296 0 21,296 0 19,617 0 19,617 0 13,321 0 13,321 0 40

Public 4-year nondoctorate-granting 12,890 7,141 3,751 1,998 12,342 6,792 3,649 1,901 9,166 4,940 2,858 1,369 57

Public 4-year doctorategranting 26,120 13,224 6,346 6,550 24,806 12,487 6,129 6,189 18,892 9,358 4,945 4,589 64

Private nonprofit less-than4-year 870 0 870 0 838 0 838 0 543 0 543 0 37

Private nonprofit 4-year 

non-doctorate-granting 12,160 6,813 2,601 2,746 11,540 6,434 2,512 2,595 8,682 4,772 2,006 1,904 31

Private nonprofit 4-year 

doctorate-granting 13,890 7,590 2,271 4,029 13,262 7,219 2,209 3,834 9,920 5,347 1,762 2,811 45

Private for-profit less-than2-year 3,650 0 3,650 0 3,482 0 3,482 0 1,998 0 1,998 0 41

Private for-profit 2-year 6,890 0 6,890 0 6,737 0 6,737 0 4,450 0 4,450 0 48

Private for-profit 4-year 27,870 16,509 5,631 5,730 26,768 15,782 5,506 5,481 16,646 9,682 3,636 3,327 76

NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. 
9

Institutions that fail QC will be re-contacted to resolve the discrepancy and to verify that the institution 

coordinator who prepared the student list clearly understood our request and provided a list of the 

appropriate students. When we determine that the initial list provided by the institution was not satisfactory, 

we will request a replacement list. We will proceed with selecting sample students when we have either 

confirmed that the list received is correct or have received a corrected list.

Quality control (QC) is very important for sampling and all statistical activities, and statistical procedures will 

undergo thorough quality control checks. We have technical operating procedures (TOPs) in place for 

sampling and general programming. These TOPs describe how to properly implement statistical procedures 

and QC checks. We will employ a checklist for all statisticians to use to make sure that all appropriate QC 

checks are done for student sampling.

Some specific sampling QC checks will include, but are not limited to, checking that the: 

 Institutions and students on the sampling frames all have a known, non-zero probability of selection;

 Distribution of implicit stratification for institutions is reasonable; and

 Number of institutions and students selected match the target sample sizes.

3. Institutional Contacting

Establishing and maintaining contact with sampled institutions throughout the data collection process is vital 

to the success of NPSAS:16. Institutional participation is required in order to draw the student sample and 

collect institutional student records. The process in which institutions will be contacted is depicted in figure 1 

and described below.

Figure 1. Flow chart of institutional contacting activities
10

The contractor, RTI, will be responsible for contacting institutions on behalf of NCES. Each staff member 

will be assigned a set of institutions that is their responsibility throughout the data collection process. This 

allows the contractor's staff members to establish rapport with the institution staff and provides a reliable 

point of contact at the contractors call center. Staff members are thoroughly trained in basic financial aid 

concepts and in the purposes and requirements of the study, which helps them establish credibility with the 

institution staff.

Verification calls will be made to each sampled institution to confirm eligibility and verify contact 

information, obtained from the IPEDS header files, prior to mailing study information. A sample of the script 

used for these calls can be found in appendix D. Once the contact information is verified, we will prepare and 

send an information packet to the chief administrator of each sampled institution. A copy of the letter and 

brochure can be found in appendix E. The materials will provide information about the purpose of the study 

and the nature of subsequent requests. Approximately one week after the information packet is mailed; 

institutional contactors will conduct follow-up calls to secure study participation. 

The choice of an appropriate coordinator at each institution will be left to the chief administrator, but 

institution contactors will work with the chief administrator’s office in attempting to designate the most 

appropriate coordinator. NCES and its contractor will identify relevant multicampus systems within the field 

test sample as these systems can supply enrollment list data at the system level, minimizing burden on 

individual campuses. Even when it is not possible for a system to supply system-wide data, they can lend 

support in other ways, such as by prompting institutions under their jurisdiction to participate. 

The institutional coordinator will receive a mailing containing study materials and, as a first step, will be asked 

to complete the online Institutional Registration Page (IRP). A copy of the IRP is included in Appendix F. 

The primary function of the IRP is to confirm the date the institution will be able to provide the student 

enrollment list. Based on the information provided, a customized timeline will be created for each institution. 

As a second step, institutional coordinators will be asked to provide electronic enrollment lists of all students 

enrolled during the academic year. Depending on the information provided from the IRP, the earliest 

enrollment lists will be due in late January. As described above, the lists will serve as the frame from which 

the student sample will be drawn. Email prompts will be sent to institutional coordinators based on a 

customized schedule created for each institution. A reminder letter directing institution coordinators to the 

website for complete instructions will be sent, typically three weeks prior to the deadline.

4. Tests of Procedures or Methods

There will be no tests of procedures or methods as part of NPSAS:16 institution contacting, enrollment list 

collection, and list sampling.

5. Reviewing Statisticians and Individuals Responsible for Designing and 

Conducting the Study

The following statisticians at NCES are responsible for the statistical aspects of the study: Dr. Tracy HuntWhite, Dr. Sarah Crissey, Dr. Sean Simone, and Mr. Ted Socha. Names of RTI staff working on the statistical 

aspects of study design along with their affiliation and telephone numbers are provided below.

Name Affiliation Telephone Number

Dr. Jennifer Wine RTI 919-541-6870

Dr. James Chromy RTI 919-541-7019

Mr. Peter Siegel RTI 919-541-6348

Dr. Natasha Janson RTI 919-316-3394

Dr. John Riccobono RTI 919-541-7006

Dr. Emilia Peytcheva RTI 919-541-7217

Mr. David Radwin RTI 510-665-8274

Dr. Jennie Woo RTI 510-665-8276
11

6. Other Contractors’ Staff Responsible for Conducting the Study

The study is being conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of 

Education. NCES’s prime contractor is the RTI International (RTI). Subcontractors include Coffey 

Consulting; Hermes; HR Directions; Kforce Government Solutions, Inc.; Research Support Services; Shugoll 

Research; and Strategic Communications, Inc. Consultants are Dr. Sandy Baum and Ms. Alisa Cunningham. 

Principal professional RTI staff, not listed above, who are assigned to the study include Mr. Jeff Franklin, Ms. 

Christine Rasmussen, Ms. Kristin Dudley, Mr. Brian Kuhr, and Ms. Tiffany Mattox.

13

C. Information Collected on Enrollment Lists 

Sampled institutions will be asked to provide enrollment lists that will include several data items. These 

enrollment lists will be used to screen for eligibility and to select the NPSAS:16 student sample. The data 

items, requested for each student enrolled in the time frame of interest (July 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015 for the 

field test and July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016 for the full-scale study) are presented below. 

 Name

 Social Security number (SSN)

 Student ID number (if different from SSN)

 Date of birth (DOB)

 Student level (undergraduate, masters, doctoral-research/scholarship/other, doctoral-professional 

practice, other graduate)

 Undergraduate degree program

 Date of first enrollment

 Class level of undergraduates (first year, second year, etc.)

 Potential baccalaureate recipient indicator

 CIP code or major

 Contact information, including local and permanent street address and phone number and school 

and home e-mail address

 Veteran status

 GPA

 Number of credits accumulated

 Account status

 Race/ethnicity 

 Gender

 First-time doctoral student indicator

Name, SSN, student ID, and date of birth will be used for identifying the students selected for the sample. 

We recognize the sensitivity of requesting SSN and DOB for all students on enrollment lists, and appreciate 

the argument that it should be obtained only for sample members. However, collecting this information for 

all enrolled students is critical to the success of the study for several reasons: 

 Having SSN, which is used as the unique student identification number by most institutions, will 

ensure the accuracy of the sample. It will also be used to unduplicate the sample for students who 

attend multiple institutions.

 NPSAS:16 will collect data from many administrative data sources on sample members to 

supplement data collected from students and institutions. (Record matching procedures will be 

described in the student OMB package that will be submitted in the fall of 2014). 

 Making one initial data request of institutions will minimize the burden required by participation.

It is very likely that, if faced with two requests, some institutions would respond to the first 

request, but not to the second. Refusal to provide SSNs after the sample members are selected 

will contribute dramatically to student-level nonresponse because it will increase the rate of 

unlocatable students.

 Obtaining SSNs early will allow us to initiate locating procedures early enough to ensure that data 

collection can be completed within the allotted schedule. The data collection schedule would be 

significantly and negatively impacted if locating activities could not begin at the earliest stages of 

institutional contact.
14

Schools will be asked to provide CIP code or major to allow over- and under-sampling of specific fields. 

Student level, class level, and baccalaureate indicator will be used to form the student strata described in 

section B, and identify students eligible for follow-up as part of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal 

Study.

We will request locating data from institutions concurrent with the collection of student lists to allow webbased student record collection and student interviewing to begin almost immediately after sample selection, 

helping us meet the tight schedule for data collection, data processing, and file development. If an institution 

is unwilling to provide location data for all students listed on the enrollment list, we will request locating data 

only for sampled students immediately after the sample is selected.

With the increasing interest in veteran student success, for the field test, veteran’s status will be requested on 

enrollment lists to determine whether or not institutions can provide the information. Also during the field 

test, GPA, number of credits accumulated, and account status will be evaluated for their usefulness in 

accurately identifying baccalaureate recipients. As described in part B, race/ethnicity, gender, and date first 

enrolled at the institution will be used to determine whether or not excluding students first enrolling in May 

and June biases the sample. The first-time doctoral student indicator will help us explore the feasibility of a 

possible future study of doctoral student persistence.
15

D. References

Chromy, J.R. (1979). Sequential Sample Selection Methods. Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research 

Methods of the American Statistical Association, 401-406.

Cominole, M., Riccobono, J., Siegel, P., and Caves, L. (2009). 2007–08 National Postsecondary Student Aid 

Study (NPSAS:08) Full-scale Methodology Report (2010-188) (Forthcoming). National Center for 

Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. 

Cominole, M., Siegel, P., Dudley, K., Roe, D., and Gilligan, T. 2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study 

(NPSAS:04) Full Scale Methodology Report (NCES 2006–180). U.S. Department of Education. 

Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. 

Cominole, M., Wheeless, S., Dudley, K., Franklin, J., and Wine, J. (2007). 2004/06 Beginning Postsecondary 

Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/06) Methodology Report (NCES 2008-184). National Center for 

Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC.

Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, 20 U.S.C. § 9573. (2007).

Folsom, R.E., Potter, F.J., and Williams, S.R. (1987). Notes on a Composite Size Measure for Self-Weighting 

Samples in Multiple Domains. Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods of the American 

Statistical Association, 792-796.

Malizio, Andrew G. (1995) Methodology Report for the 1993 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study 

(NCES 95-211). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education 

Statistics.

Riccobono, J., Cominole, M., Siegel, P., Gabel, T., Link, M., and Berkner, L. (2005). National Postsecondary 

Student Aid Study, 1999-2000 (NPSAS:2000) Methodology Report (NCES 2002–152). U.S. Department 

of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. 

Riccobono, J., Whitmore, R., Gabel, T., Traccarella, M., and Pratt, D.(1997). National Postsecondary Student 

Aid Study, 1995-96 (NPSAS:96), Methodology Report. (NCES 98-073). U.S. Department of Education. 

Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

Sheperd, Jane. (1992). Methodology Report for the 1990 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NCES 

92-080). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.