NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS

Technical Report May 1997

National Household Education Survey

An Overview of the National

Household Education Survey:

1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Educational Research and Improvement NCES 97-448
NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS

Technical Report May 1997

National Household Education Survey

An Overview of the National

Household Education Survey:

1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996

Mary Jo Nolin

Mary Collins

J. Michael Brick

Westat, Inc.

Kathryn Chandler

National Center for Education Statistics

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Educational Research and Improvement NCES 97-448
U.S. Department of Education

Richard W. Riley

Secretary

Office of Educational Research and Improvement

Ramon C. Cortines

Acting Assistant Secretary

National Center for Education Statistics

Pascal D. Forgione, Jr.

Commissioner

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for

collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other

nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and

complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish

reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist

state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and

report on education activities in foreign countries.

NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide

consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and

report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the

Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the

general public.

We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is

appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our

success in communicating information effectively. If you have any comments or suggestions

about this or any other NCES product or report, we would like to hear from you. Please

direct your comments to:

National Center for Education Statistics

Office of Educational Research and Improvement

U.S. Department of Education

555 New Jersey Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20208-5574

May 1997

Suggested Citation

U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. An Overview of the National Household

Education Survey: 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996, NCES 97-448, by Mary Jo Nolin, Mary A. Collins, J. Michael Brick, and

Kathryn Chandler. Washington, DC: 1997.

Contact:

Kathryn Chandler

(202) 219-1767

(e-mail) nhes@ed.gov

http://www.ed.gov/NCES/NHES
iii

Table of Contents

Section Page

Background................................................................................................................. 1

Survey Topics ............................................................................................................. 2

NHES:91 Components.................................................................................................. 2

NHES:93 Components.................................................................................................. 4

NHES:95 Components.................................................................................................. 5

NHES:96 Components.................................................................................................. 5

Survey Design............................................................................................................. 6

General Design Features ............................................................................................... 6

Instrument Development ............................................................................................... 7

Sampling Procedures .................................................................................................. 10

Sampling Households ................................................................................................... 10

Oversampling Households for Blacks and Hispanics ..................................................... 11

Approaches to Household Enumeration ......................................................................... 12

Sampling Within Households ........................................................................................ 13

Data Collection ........................................................................................................... 16

Interviewer Training ..................................................................................................... 16

Calling Protocol ........................................................................................................... 16

Response Rates ........................................................................................................... 18

Data Editing................................................................................................................ 20

Coding Open-Ended Items ......................................................................................... 20

Imputation .................................................................................................................. 21

Weighting Procedures................................................................................................. 21

Household Weights....................................................................................................... 22

Person Weights............................................................................................................. 23

Variance Estimation Methods ....................................................................................... 24
iv

Table of Contents (continued)

Section Page

Data Quality Assessment Activities ............................................................................ 25

Reinterview Program .................................................................................................... 25

Coverage Bias .............................................................................................................. 26

NHES Data Sets ......................................................................................................... 26

NHES Publications ..................................................................................................... 27

References................................................................................................................... 28

List of Tables

1. Summary of NHES interviews .............................................................................. 3

2. Mean administration time for Screeners and extended interviews,

by survey year...................................................................................................... 8

3. Weighted NHES completion and response rates, by survey year

and component ..................................................................................................... 19
v
1

Background

The National Household Education Survey

(NHES) is a data collection system of the

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES),

which has as its legislative mission the collection

and publication of data on the condition of

education in the Nation. The NHES is

specifically designed to support this mission by

providing information on those educational issues

that are best addressed by contacting households

rather than schools or other educational

institutions. The NHES, which was conducted in

1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996, provides

descriptive data on the educational activities of

the U.S. population and offers policymakers,

researchers, and educators a variety of statistics

on the condition of education in the United

States.

The NHES is a telephone survey of the

noninstitutionalized civilian population of the

United States. Households are selected for the

survey using random-digit-dialing (RDD)

methods, and data are collected using computerassisted telephone interviewing (CATI)

procedures. From 45,000 to 64,000 households

are screened for each administration, and

individuals within households who meet

predetermined criteria are sampled for more

detailed or extended interviews. The data are

weighted to permit estimates of the entire

population. The NHES survey for a given year

typically consists of a set of screening questions

(Screener), which collects household composition

and demographic data, and extended interviews

on two substantive components addressing

education-related topics. In order to assess data

item reliability and inform future NHES surveys,

each administration also includes data quality

studies such as reinterviews with a subsample of

respondents.

Throughout its history, the NHES has collected

data in ways that permit estimates to be tracked

across time. This includes repeating topical

components on a rotating basis in order to

provide comparative data across survey years. In

addition, each administration of the NHES has

benefited from experiences with previous cycles,

resulting in improvements to the survey

procedures and content. Thus, while the survey

affords the opportunity for tracking phenomena

across time, it is also dynamic in addressing new

issues and including conceptual and

methodological refinements.

A new design feature implemented in the

NHES:96 was the collection of demographic and

educational information on members of all

screened households, rather than just those

households potentially eligible for a topical

component. This expanded screening feature

included a brief set of questions on an issue of

interest to education program administrators or

policymakers. In the NHES:96, these questions

were about public library use. The total Screener

sample size was large enough to produce state

estimates of household characteristics and public

library use for the NHES:96.

The NHES system has also included a number of

methodological investigations that have resulted

in technical reports and working papers covering

diverse topics such as telephone undercoverage

bias, proxy reporting, sampling methods, and

household screening approaches. This series of

technical reports and working papers provides

valuable information on ways of using the data

from the surveys and improving the NHES in the

future.

This report presents an overview of the NHES

survey program from 1991 to 1996. It addresses

specific aspects of the NHES (e.g., survey topics,

sample design, and data collection) and discusses

how the NHES program has evolved over time. 

This report is not intended to provide detailed

information about each NHES cycle; readers who

are interested in additional detail on specific

survey administrations or survey components are

encouraged to obtain and review the Data File

User's Manuals for the components of interest

that come with the public use files, other

technical and substantive reports, and project

working papers.
2

Survey Topics

The NHES program began with a field test that

included two topical components, dropping out of

school for 14- to 21-year-olds and early

childhood education for 3- to 5-year olds. While

this 1989 field test was large in scale, involving

the screening of 15,000 households, its purpose

was not to provide research data bases but to test

the NHES design and to evaluate the two survey

topics as candidates for the NHES design. The

dropout component has not been repeated, but the

success of the early childhood component led to

the inclusion of a component focusing on young

children in each NHES collection.

Each NHES administration has included two

substantive components related to aspects of

education that can effectively be studied by

interviewing members of households. The two

topics addressed by the NHES:91 were early

childhood education and the educational activities

of adults. The NHES:93 collected information

about children's readiness for school and the

safety and discipline in school reported by

parents and students. The 1991 components

were repeated for the NHES:95, but underwent

substantial redesign to incorporate new issues

and develop new measurement approaches. In

the NHES:96, the topical components focused on

parent and family involvement in the education of

children and the civic involvement of both adults

and youth. The NHES:96 expanded screening

feature also included a set of questions on public

library use.

Table 1 shows the topics and the number of

completed interviews for each survey year. In

the sections that follow, the content of each

survey component and the populations of interest

are discussed in more detail. As noted in the

discussion below, most topics addressed in the

NHES during the period from 1991 through 1996

were related to one or more of the National

Education Goals for the year 2000. However,

each NHES administration also collected

information about adults, children, or households

that went beyond the specific measures

mentioned in or implied by the National

Education Goals and their objectives, and the

NHES has the capability to address additional

survey topics as well.

NHES:91 Components

The NHES:91 Early Childhood Education (ECE)

component concerned the care and educational

experiences of 3- to 8-year-old children. 

Children age 9 who had not yet completed second

grade were also included in order to examine

retention in early grades. The early childhood

experiences of children have a strong influence

on their later academic achievement and

persistence, but limited national information was

available on these experiences. The NHES:91

ECE component provided nationally

representative data to help fill this gap. In

addition, the survey provided data to help track

progress toward meeting the National Education

Goals, one of which is that "By the year 2000, all

children in America will start school ready to

learn."
3

Table 1.— Summary of NHES interviews

Survey year and component Number of completed

interviews

NHES:91

 Early Childhood Education

 Adult Education

13,892

12,568

NHES:93

 School Readiness

 School Safety & Discipline -- Parent interview

 School Safety & Discipline -- Youth interview

10,888

12,680

 6,504

NHES:95

 Early Childhood Program Participation

 Adult Education

14,064

19,722

NHES:96

 Expanded Screener/Household & Library

 Parent/Family Involvement in Education and Civic

 Involvement -- Parent interview

 Youth Civic Involvement

 Adult Civic Involvement

 55,838*

20,792

 8,044

 2,250

*Of the 55,838 households with which Screeners were completed, 130 households were found to include only persons on active

duty in the armed forces. As a result, these households were eliminated from the pool of completed Screeners, and 55,708

were retained.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Household Education Survey

(NHES).

The ECE component of the NHES:91 was

designed to collect information on children's

experiences in various types of nonparental child

care arrangements and early childhood programs.

For preprimary school children (those who had

not yet enrolled in 1st grade), information was

collected on children’s participation and

experiences in four types of nonparental care and

programs: care by relatives (not including

parents); care by nonrelatives; daycare centers;

and center-based programs such as nursery

schools, prekindergartens, and Head Start. For

primary school children who were currently

enrolled in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade, information

was collected about children’s kindergarten and

primary school experiences, including age at

entry and any repeating of grades. In addition, a

wide range of home and family activities was

covered in the survey, including reading, singing,

arts and crafts, visiting zoos and museums, and

attending live shows. This broad approach

permits analysis of the variety and types of

experiences of children that may be important

determinants of early school success. Parents or

guardians of sampled children who were most

knowledgeable about the child’s care and

education responded to these interviews.
4

The second component of the NHES:91 was

designed to measure participation in adult education

activities, describe these activities, provide data on

the characteristics of participants and

nonparticipants, and explore why some adults

participate while others do not. One of the National

Education Goals is that "By the year 2000, every

adult American will be literate and possess the

knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a

global economy and exercise the rights and

responsibilities of citizenship." The Adult

Education (AE) component provided a wealth of

information relative to this goal.

The AE component of the NHES:91 incorporated

and expanded upon the kinds of data that were

collected in previous surveys on adult education

designed by NCES and conducted by the Bureau of

the Census (Hill 1987). An inclusive definition of

adult education was used to encompass persons

enrolled full-time or part-time in a college or

vocational or occupational program, those taking

continuing education or noncredit courses,

correspondence courses, and tutoring, as well as

those taking courses or participating in other

educational activities provided by employers,

community groups, and other providers. Interviews

were conducted with participants and with

nonparticipants in educational activities. The

population of interest included civilian adults age 16

and older who were not enrolled in elementary or

secondary school at the time of the interview.

NHES:93 Components

The NHES:93 addressed children's readiness for

school and safety and discipline in school, topics

related to two of the National Education Goals. 

One goal states that "By the year 2000, all

children in America will start school ready to

learn." Another goal states that "By the year

2000, every school in America will be free of

drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined

environment conducive to learning." 1

 

1

Since the NHES:93 School Safety and Discipline

component was designed and conducted, the relevant

National Education goal has become, "By the year 2000,

every school in the United States will be free of drugs,

The NHES:93 School Readiness (SR) component

examined several issues relevant to readiness for

school for children age 3 through 7 and children

age 8 or 9 who were still in second grade or

below (children over age 9 who were in 2nd

grade or below were ineligible). The SR

component addressed experience in early

childhood programs, the child's accomplishments

and difficulties in several developmental

domains, school adjustment and related

problems, delayed kindergarten entry, and early

primary school experiences including repeating

grades, the child's general health and nutritional

status, home activities, and family characteristics

such as stability and economic risk factors. This

approach, which encompasses a variety of

characteristics important to school readiness, is

referred to as a "whole child" approach. Again,

parents or guardians of sampled children who

were most knowledgeable about the child’s care

and education responded to these interviews.

The second component of the NHES:93, School

Safety and Discipline (SS&D), focused on four

areas: school environment, school safety, school

discipline policy, and alcohol/other drug

availability and education. Parents or guardians

of children in 3rd through 12th grades were

interviewed, as were youth in 6th through 12th

grades.

In the SS&D interview, parents and students

provided their general perceptions of the school

learning environment. Specifically, respondents

were asked about academic challenge, classroom

and school discipline, and student norms for hard

work and good behavior. Respondents also

evaluated the safety of their schools regardless of

whether they (or their child, in the case of parent

interviews) had been personally victimized. The

component incorporated measures of "secondary

victimization," such as knowledge of and

witnessing occurrences that can adversely affect

the learning environment even if the student has

not been victimized directly. Parent and youth

 

violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and

alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive

to learning."
5

perceptions of school discipline policy were also

measured. Exposure to alcohol and other drugs

at school was gauged, as were parent and youth

knowledge of alcohol/drug education programs. 

Other items about parental expectations for

academic achievement and for their children’s

tobacco and alcohol use, parental efforts to

educate and protect children regarding safety and

substance use, parental involvement in the child's

school, and the safety of the school relative to the

child's neighborhood were also included.

NHES:95 Components

The NHES:95 addressed participation in

nonparental child care and early childhood

programs and participation in adult education. 

While the NHES:95 components repeated those

included in the NHES:91, several changes were

made to the sample design and instruments based

on experience with the earlier survey.

The NHES:95 Early Childhood Program

Participation (ECPP) component focused on

children's early experiences in various types of

nonparental child care arrangements and early

childhood programs. The core of this survey

collected extensive information on children's

participation and experiences in four types of

nonparental care and programs: care by relatives

(not including parents); care by nonrelatives;

Head Start programs; and other center-based

programs such as day care centers, preschools,

and nursery schools. Other information collected

in this component pertained to children's

kindergarten and primary school experiences;

literacy-related home activities; children's health

and disability status; and child, family, and

household characteristics. The population of

interest for the ECPP component was expanded

from the NHES:91 population to include children

from birth to 3rd grade, up to age 10; the most

knowledgeable parent or guardian of the sampled

child responded to the interview.

The NHES:95 Adult Education (AE) component

focused on the participation of adults in a wide

range of educational activities during the 12

months prior to the interview. The development

of the NHES:95 AE component benefited from

experience with the NHES:91, which led to

several refinements including less variation in the

sample design and direct questions about specific

types of AE activities to prompt recall. The

population for this survey was persons age 16

and older who were not enrolled in elementary or

secondary school and not on active duty in the

U.S. Armed Forces at the time of the interview. 

The sampled adults were asked about their

participation in seven broadly defined types of

adult education activities: adult basic skills and

General Educational Development (GED)

preparation classes, English as a second language

instruction, courses taken toward college degrees

or vocational diplomas or certificates,

apprenticeship programs, career- or job-related

courses, any other formally structured courses,

and computer-only or video-only instruction on

the job. The AE component also collected data

pertaining to reasons for and barriers to

participation in adult education.

NHES:96 Components

The NHES:96 included parent and youth

interviews focusing on Parent and Family

Involvement in Education (PFI) and Civic

Involvement (CI). The population of interest for

the PFI component included children from age 3

through 12th grade. The population of interest

for the CI component included children in 6th

through 12th grade and their parents and civilian

adults age 18 and older. As noted earlier,

households were also asked about public library

use in the expanded household screening

interview in this survey.

In the PFI component, information was collected

on children’s schools or center-based early

childhood programs. In addition, information

was collected on family involvement, including

the involvement of the nonresidential parent, in

four areas: children's schooling, communication

with teachers or other school personnel,

children's homework and behavior, and activities

with children outside of school. Other items

captured parents' involvement in home schooling.
6

The majority of these questions were asked only

of the most knowledgeable parents; however,

some questions were asked of parents and youth

and others only of youth. The component also

collected information about parents' and youths’

reports of the school environment, and parents’

reports of school practices to involve and support

families, and barriers to family involvement.

The CI component of the NHES:96 provided an

assessment of the opportunities that youth in

grades 6 to 12 have to develop the personal

responsibility and skills that would facilitate their

taking an active role in civic life. It gathered

information from both youth and their parents

related to the diverse ways that parents may

participate in socializing their children for

informed civic participation, for example, by

discussing national issues or participating in

community service. The CI component included

measures of attitudes and knowledge related to

civic life. This survey component also gathered

information from youth about school practices

that would prepare them to be involved in

community and civic life.

In order to provide national estimates for all

adults, not just parents of students in 6th through

12th grade, the CI component included a sample

of civilian adults age 18 and older, excluding

those still in high school. The adult were asked

about sources of information on politics and

national issues, organizational participation, civic

participation, political attitudes, and knowledge

of government.

Finally, the new feature of expanding the

questions asked in the household screening

interview was fully implemented in the

NHES:96. Called the Expanded Screener

component, it provided monitoring information

on the educational and demographic

characteristics of all persons, regardless of

whether anyone in the household was eligible for

sampling for a topical component. It included

information on the enrollment status, grade, and

educational attainment of each household

member, as well as demographic characteristics

such as age, gender, marital status, country of

birth, and first language spoken. In addition, the

Expanded Screener included a brief set of

substantive questions that address a topical area

of concern to the Department of Education. In

the NHES:96, the topical component in the

Expanded Screener was household use of public

libraries. The NHES:96 provided state as well

as national estimates for household

characteristics and for items on household public

library use.

Survey Design

This section addresses the design of the NHES. 

The first subsection focuses on general design

features of the survey system. The second

subsection discusses some specific aspects of the

survey instrument development process used in

the NHES and how these design activities have

changed over time. Finally, changes over time in

the screening of households in the NHES, a key

design feature, are described.

General Design Features

The NHES was developed to provide reliable

estimates for each of two different topical

components addressed in the survey for a given

year. In the NHES:96, the Expanded Screener

provided a new monitoring capability. The

inclusion of two topical components makes the

overall survey more cost effective, thus allowing

for larger sample sizes that lead to more precise

estimates. This strategy has been key to the

NHES design. By including more than one topic

within the framework of a single survey,

screening of households to find those eligible for

the study could be partitioned over the

component surveys.

Another general feature of the NHES design was

developed in response to concerns about the

demands placed upon the respondents to surveys.

With the introduction of multiple survey

components within a single framework came the

possibility of increasing the number of interviews

and the response burden on the members of the
7

sampled households. It was possible that the

same household member could be asked to

respond to more than one interview or that more

than one household member could be sampled.

To help alleviate this response burden and to

improve the response rate for the component

surveys, differential sampling within households

was used. The objective was to reduce the

number of interviews within a household and still

obtain the required information in a cost-effective

manner.

Even though sampling methods were used to

reduce the chances of selecting the same

household for multiple interviews, the

administration time of the interview was a critical

factor in obtaining high response rates and

reliable estimates. The number of items included

and length of the interview were limited in order

to help improve response rates and reduce the

demands made on survey respondents. In the

NHES:91, the interviews were designed to take

no more than 15 minutes, on average. In

subsequent years, the interviews were designed to

have average times of 20 minutes or less. Table

2 show the average administration time for the

Screeners and extended interviews by survey

year.

Because of the complexity of the NHES design

and the need to produce estimates of high quality

in a timely manner, the NHES has been

conducted using computer-assisted telephone

interviewing (CATI) technology. Some of the

advantages of CATI for the NHES include

improved project administration, online sampling

and eligibility checks, scheduling of interviews

according to a priority scheme to improve

response rates, and managing data quality by

controlling skip patterns and checking items for

allowable ranges and logical consistency during

the interview.

Instrument Development

Over time, resources devoted to the development

of topical components for the NHES collections

changed. Initially, the NHES had a relatively

brief development period. In the NHES:91,

development of the survey began about 1 year

prior to the start of data collection; in the

NHES:93, work on the survey began about 10

months prior to data collection. The development

period for the NHES collections was expanded

beginning with the NHES:95. The purpose of

this expanded development period was to

accommodate additional background research

prior to instrument development and additional

testing of the instruments. Below, these design

activities and how they have changed over the

course of the NHES program are described.
8

Table 2.—Mean administration time for Screeners* and extended interviews, by survey year and

component

Survey year and component Number of

interviews*

Mean interview

length in

minutes

NHES:91

Screener 60,314 3.2

Early Childhood Education 13,892 12.2

Adult Education 12,568 14.0

NHES:93

Screener 63,844 2.5

School Readiness 10,888 21.5

School Safety and Discipline-Parent 12,680 18.3

School Safety and Discipline-Youth 6,504 12.0

NHES:95

Basic Screener 43,987 3.2

Early Childhood Program Participation 14,064 12.6

Adult Education 19,722 13.9

Adult Education, Splice 3,569 4.1

NHES:96

Expanded Screener/Household & Library 55,838 7.1

Parent/Family Involvement in Education

and Civic Involvement

20,792 18.7

Youth Civic Involvement 8,044 10.4

Adult Civic Involvement 2,250 9.6

*Number of completed Screeners is the number for which timing data were available.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Household Education Survey

(NHES).

Review of extant research. Beginning with the

NHES:95, extensive reviews of extant data

sources were conducted to support the

development of the survey components. The

intent of these reviews was twofold. First, this

activity was designed to set a context within

which the NHES would operate, that is, to

present information on surveys that address

similar issues. Second, the reviews examined the

limitations of other surveys and explored how

they could be ameliorated in the NHES.

Consultation with experts. Consultation with a

Technical Review Panel (TRP) comprising

persons with relevant substantive and

methodological expertise had always been a

feature of the NHES system. The NHES:95 and

NHES:96 also included greater levels of

consultation with experts in relevant fields prior

to the start of instrument development. These

consultations took place in two forms. First,

survey managers and NCES personnel consulted

individually with experts in the fields of interest
9

in order to obtain feedback on key issues

associated with the topical components. Second,

a group meeting of experts in the relevant fields

was held for each topical component for the

purpose of refining the issues that were identified

initially and developing the research questions of

highest priority to those in the field. A TRP for

each survey component was convened to review

the instrument content and design.

Cognitive laboratory research. The use of

cognitive laboratory research, both focus groups

and individual interviews, began with the

NHES:91 ECE component. More extensive

cognitive laboratory research was conducted in

the NHES:93 but was limited by the brief time

frame available for the design of that survey. In

the NHES:95 and NHES:96, extensive, multicycle cognitive laboratory research was

conducted in order to develop and test the survey

instruments. Cognitive laboratory activities in

the NHES have included individual interviews,

using concurrent and post-interview debriefing

methods, and focus groups following telephone

administration of the interviews. Further

information on cognitive laboratory applications

in the NHES is provided in Use of Cognitive

Laboratories and Recorded Interviews in the

National Household Education Survey (Nolin

and Chandler 1996).

Field tests. Another aspect of instrument

development that has evolved since the first

NHES is the use of field tests that address the

methodological issues associated with collecting

and analyzing data on the topical components. In

the field test, the number of households sampled

was smaller than would be included in a fullscale survey and the callback protocol utilized in

a full-scale survey was not generally used. 

However, in other ways, the field tests used all of

the features of the full-scale NHES surveys,

including the use of random-digit-dialing (RDD)

and computer-assisted telephone interviewing

(CATI) methods.

Experienced interviewers were selected to

conduct field test interviews, resulting in reduced

training requirements. Training for the field tests

consisted of interactive lectures and role plays

and was conducted using the CATI system,

providing the trainees with hands-on experience

with the instruments prior to beginning data

collection.

In the NHES:91 and NHES:93, which had

shorter development periods, field tests were

conducted about one month before interviewer

training. These field tests served to "shake

down" the CATI system and to identify any

significant problem areas in the questionnaires. 

This activity was expanded for the NHES:95 and

the NHES:96 to multi-phase, larger field tests

conducted in the spring prior to the actual survey.

 These expanded field-testing activities provided

more opportunity to assess the working of the

instruments and their administration time, to

make the necessary changes in the instruments,

and then to test those changes in a live

interviewing situation.

In the NHES:95, the two field testing periods

were planned, with the first being a relatively

large field test to test all paths of the

questionnaires and to identify any problems with

the instruments. The second phase was a smaller

test and focused on the changes made to the

instruments after the initial testing period. In

order to provide sufficient numbers of cases for

rare populations, the RDD sample for the field

test was supplemented with cases having desired

characteristics. Specifically, persons who

participated in adult basic education, GED

preparation, or English as a second language

programs were added to the sample, so that the

working of the instrument for these rare

populations could be assessed. Following the

first phase of the NHES:95 field test, two smaller

phases, rather than one, were conducted to

evaluate subsequent changes to the instrument.

The NHES:95 field test experience led to a

recommendation to conduct future tests

differently; specifically, to conduct a smaller first

field test followed by a larger second field test. 

Because significant difficulties with

questionnaires can often be detected quickly with

intensive monitoring of interviews and
10

interviewer feedback, a smaller first field test

would permit the resolution of any significant

problems prior to the investment of significant

resources in the larger field test.

Consistent with the recommendation made at the

conclusion of the NHES:95 field test, the

NHES:96 field test included a smaller first phase

and a larger second phase; a smaller third phase

was also added. The first phase of the NHES:96

field test was used to identify any problems in

terms of interview flow or the meaning of items

to respondents and to assess interview

administration time.

Phase two of the field test examined the

effectiveness of revisions to the Parent PFI/CI or

Youth CI interviews instituted after the first

phase. This phase also incorporated two

methodological tests of conditions that might

affect response rates. The tests were conducted

on split-half samples. One split-half test

involved mailing an advance information letter to

addresses obtained through matching telephone

numbers with published addresses. The other

test involved administering two versions of the

Screener, one containing a question that screened

out households with no children age 20 or

younger before enumeration and one enumerating

every household contacted. Further information

on this methodological investigation can be found

in An Experiment in Random-digit-dial

Screening (Brick et al., forthcoming).

The third phase of the NHES:96 field test was

conducted for the Adult CI survey. It also

incorporated a new placement of the library items

in the Screener. Specifically, the third phase of

the field test examined placing the library items

before the household enumeration matrix to

engage the respondent by beginning with

substantive questions and therefore improve

response rate. Based on the findings from this

field test, this new strategy was adopted.

Sampling Procedures

As noted above, the NHES uses a random-digitdial sampling approach to select households for

the surveys. The two approaches used in RDD

sampling for the NHES are discussed below in

the section on household sampling. Once the

sample of telephone numbers was selected,

different approaches to enumerating the members

of the households and procedures for sampling

members within households were used in the

surveys. These were largely determined by the

specific populations targeted in the substantive

components of a given NHES collection. These

methods are also discussed below.

Sampling Households

Different methods have been developed over the

years for selecting random samples of telephone

households. The Mitofsky-Waksberg method of

random digit dialing, as described in Waksberg

(1978), is the best known and, until recently, one

of the most widely used of the methods. This

method involves selecting a fixed number of

residential telephone numbers in 100-banks (sets

of numbers with the same first 8 digits of the 10-

digit telephone number). For the NHES:91 and

the NHES:93, a modified Mitofsky-Waksberg

method described by Brick and Waksberg (1991)

was used, in which a fixed number of telephone

numbers is sampled from 100-banks. In the

NHES:91, 30 telephone numbers were sampled

in each of 4,000 100-banks (also known as

clusters). In the NHES:93, 27 to 33 telephone

numbers were sampled in each of 4,577 clusters 2.

 

2

 Each cluster was composed of a prime number, used to

determine whether the cluster was residential, and

secondary numbers, a sample of additional telephone

numbers in the cluster. In each cluster, 32 secondary

numbers were sampled in addition to the prime number,

although it was anticipated that 26 secondary numbers

would be needed. The additional numbers were sampled

in order to provide reserve numbers in case they were

needed due to low residency or nonresponse. Early in data

collection, all 32 selected secondary numbers were

released and worked in some clusters. Only 26 secondary

numbers were released and worked in each cluster after

the problem of the release of all 32 numbers was
11

The specific number of telephone numbers within

cluster was determined by the needs of the

particular survey and accrued experience with

observed residency rates. While the modified

method reduced the number of telephone numbers

that must be dialed relative to the MitofskyWaksberg method, it is still a clustered design

and results in an increase in variance of about 10

percent.

A different approach to RDD sampling, called a

list-assisted method (Casady and Lepkowski

1993), has become more widely used in recent

years, and that method was used for the

NHES:95 and the NHES:96. The list-assisted

sampling approach is a simple random sample of

telephone numbers selected from all telephone

numbers that are in 100-banks in which there is

at least one telephone number listed in the White

Pages (called the listed stratum). Telephone

numbers in 100-banks with no listed telephone

numbers (called the zero-listed stratum) are not

sampled. Telephone numbers in the listed

stratum include both numbers listed in the White

Pages and unlisted numbers. The design requires

only one listed residential telephone number in

the 100-bank. This method has several

advantages over the modified MitofskyWaksberg method. Because it is an unclustered

design, the list-assisted approach results in

estimates with lower variances than the clustered

alternative methods. Brick et al. (1995) discuss

the list-assisted method and the MitofskyWaksberg method and show the list-assisted

method is more efficient. The major disadvantage

is that this method incurs a coverage bias

because households in the zero-listed stratum

have no chance of being included in the sample. 

However, Brick et al. (1995) demonstrated that

the resulting bias is quite small.

 

identified. The use of different numbers of secondary

numbers in the clusters has no effect on the weighting

procedures.

Oversampling Households for Blacks and

Hispanics

One of the goals of every NHES survey was to

produce reliable estimates for subdomains

defined by race and ethnicity. In fact, estimates

by race and ethnicity were key in developing the

sample size for each of the components for each

survey year. In a sample of 60,000 households

(the NHES household samples ranged from

45,000 to 64,000) in which every person has the

same probability of being included, the number

of completed interviews with blacks and

Hispanics would not be large enough to produce

reliable estimates of important characteristics of

those subpopulations. Therefore, blacks and

Hispanics were sampled at higher rates to

improve the reliability of estimates for these

groups.

To increase the samples sizes for black and

Hispanic persons in the NHES, telephone

numbers in areas with high percentages of blacks

or Hispanics were sampled at higher rates 3. The

100-banks were classified in the high minority

concentration stratum if at least 20 percent of its

population was black or 20 percent was

Hispanic. The race/ethnicity distributions were

obtained from the most recent census data

available. The 100-banks not meeting this

requirement were classified in the low minority

concentration stratum. The sampling rate in the

high minority concentration stratum was twice

the rate of the low minority stratum in all NHES

samples.

Oversampling by the characteristics of the prefix

area had two effects. First, the oversampling

increased the sample sizes for minorities because

they were more heavily concentrated in the

oversampled 100-banks and, at the same time,

reduced the sampling errors for estimates for

 

3

 In the NHES:93, areas with high percentages of Asians

were also sampled at a higher rate to explore the

usefulness of this approach. This was not continued in the

NHES:95 and NHES:96 for two reasons. First, the

procedure was not very effective. Second, the sample

frame used for the new list-assisted approach did not have

this information available.
12

blacks and Hispanics. On the other hand, not all

minorities were found in the oversampled areas

so different sampling rates were applied to

persons depending on their telephone number. 

Using differential rates increased the sampling

errors of the estimates. These increases partially

offset the benefit of the larger minority sample

sizes; however, the net result was an increase in

precision for estimates for black and Hispanic

persons. The technical report Effectiveness of

Oversampling Blacks and Hispanics in the

NHES Field Test (Mohadjer and West 1992)

addresses this issue in more detail.

Approaches to Household Enumeration

The approach to screening households also

changed over the course of the NHES. These

changes include methods of enumerating

members of households that are contacted and the

amount of information collected in the Screener

about the household and its members. The

NHES Screeners for the NHES:91, the

NHES:93, and the NHES:95 were used to

identify households, to collect information needed

to sample household members for extended

interviews, and to identify the appropriate

respondents for interviews about children and

youth. The Screeners in these surveys took an

average of 2.5 to 3.2 minutes to complete. In the

NHES:96, the Screener was also used to obtain

household-level characteristics; consequently, it

took an average of 7.1 minutes to complete.

Each of the Screeners began by introducing the

interviewer, the content of the survey, the fact

that the Department of Education sponsored the

study, a mention of the voluntary and confidential

nature of the study, and a statement that the

interview would be brief (5 to 7 minutes). In

each year, prompts were added in the Screener to

remind respondents to include children living

away from home in school housing. In 1995 and

1996, prompts were added to remind respondents

to include babies and small children. The

Screeners for each year are included with the

data files. Some of the key features of the

screening methods used in this survey are

described below.

In the NHES:91, a split-enumeration

design was used. All households were

screened for the ECE component, and a

subset of households was screened for the

AE component. Under this design,

children age 2 to 9 were enumerated in all

households with any members in this age

range. Then, adults age 16 and older were

enumerated in those households selected

for the AE portion of the sample. Thus,

enumeration of all household members

occurred only in those households selected

for the AE component in which all

household members were either age 2 to 9

or age 16 and older. During enumeration,

the first name, age, and the sex of each

member were collected.

In the NHES:93, households were

enumerated only when there were any

household members age 20 or younger, in

which case all household members were

enumerated. As in the NHES:91, the

enumeration included first name, age, and

sex. The purpose of the full enumeration

of households with members age 20 or

younger was to provide information that

would address School Readiness research

questions associated with household

composition and family relationships.

In the NHES:95, all households were fully

enumerated. The full enumeration of all

households was conducted because every

household was screened for both the ECPP

and AE components and every household

potentially had at least one member

eligible for an interview. The NHES:95

also included a test of an Expanded

Screener that collected educational and

demographic information on the household

members and included a brief topical

component.

The Expanded Screener was implemented

in the NHES:96. Under the Expanded
13

Screener design, all households were fully

enumerated, and information was collected

on the demographic and educational

characteristics of the household members.

 As noted above, the Expanded Screener

provides a new monitoring capability. In

addition, it included a brief topical

component in which information was

collected on public library use by

household members.

Sampling Within Households

The within-household sample designs for the

NHES collections were determined by the

specific goals of the survey components for each

survey year. As noted earlier, some aspects of

the within-household sampling protocols were

designed to reduce the response burden within

households by limiting the number of interviews

for which household members were selected. In

the sections that follow, the within-household

sample design for each NHES collection is

briefly discussed.

NHES:91

All 3- to 8-year-olds in sampled households were

included in the ECE component of the NHES:91,

as were 9-year-olds who had not completed

second grade. All children 2 to 9 years old were

sampled to ensure that nearly all children eligible

for the extended interviews were identified, even

if a rounding error was made in reporting the

ages of the children. The month and year of the

child's birth was collected in the ECE interview

and this item was used to separate the eligible

and ineligible children for the survey. For

eligibility purposes, the child's age was

calculated as of December 31, 1990. The parent

or guardian of the sampled child reported to be

the most knowledgeable about his/her care and

education was the respondent for the interview.

It was not necessary to screen all households for

AE to achieve the required sample size. Based

on the expected rate of participation, it was

determined that 31,000 of the 60,0000 should be

screened for AE. The probability of screening a

household for the AE component was reduced by

a factor of two if the household included any

children eligible for the ECE component to

reduce the response burden. All adults identified

as participating in adult education activities in

the AE-screened households were sampled, half

the full-time degree-seeking students were

sampled, and about 7 percent of the

nonparticipants were sampled. The sampled

adult was the respondent for the AE interview.

After a few weeks of data collection, it was clear

that some of the design parameters used in

planning the study were not appropriate. 

Specifically, the rate of participation in AE was

substantially greater than was expected based on

the 1984 CPS adult education supplement. 

Based on these early results, two changes were

made in the sampling procedures for the AE

component. The number of sampled households

screened for AE component was reduced;

altogether, 18,463 households out of 60,300

completed Screeners (31 percent) were screened

for the AE component. In addition, the sampling

rate for nonparticipants was increased from 7

percent to 12 percent.

The NHES:91 inference population was the

noninstitutionalized, civilian population. When

the industry and occupation codes (SIC and

SOC) of AE respondents were examined, the

sample was found to include some members of

the armed services who were living in their own

homes outside of military living quarters. These

adults were included in the data file but assigned

weights of zero, since they were not included in

the population of interest.

NHES:93

Unlike the NHES:91, in which each eligible child

was selected, subsampling of children within

households was implemented in the NHES:93. 

This was necessary because both NHES:93

components focused on children and the potential

response burden could have been quite large if all

children from age 3 through 12th grade were

sampled.
14

The interviews for the SR component were

conducted with the most knowledgeable

parents/guardians4 of children age 3 through 7

and children age 8 or 9 who had not completed

second grade. If there were one or two eligible

children in a household all the children were

sampled. If there were more than two eligible

children in the household, two were randomly

sampled from the household.

Any child enrolled in grades 3 through 12 and

below the age of 21 was eligible for sampling for

the SS&D component parent interview. A parent

was asked to complete the extended interview for

every sampled child. The probabilities of

selecting 3rd through 5th graders were lower than

the probabilities of selecting those in the upper

grades. In an effort to reduce the burden on the

sampled households, the sampling was limited so

that, at most, one child in 3rd through 5th grades

and no more than two children in any household

were sampled for SS&D parent interviews. As a

result, a maximum of two children per household

were selected for the SS&D component; the

maximum could consist of one 3rd through 5th

grader and one 6th through 12th grader or two

6th through 12th graders.

At the next sampling stage, youth themselves

were subsampled and interviewed after the parent

interview was completed. The sample was

restricted so that no more than one youth was

subsampled per household for the youth

interview. Thus, if two 6th through 12th graders

were sampled for the parent interview, then one

of the two youths was randomly sampled for the

youth interview. The youth interview was not

conducted until the parent interview was

completed.

 

4

 In the NHES:93, a slightly different approach was used

to identify parent respondents. If the Screener respondent

was clearly the child’s mother, she was asked to complete

the interview. If the Screener respondent was not the

child’s mother (or this was unknown), the respondent was

asked to identify the most knowledgeable parent. If it was

reported that both parents were equally knowledgeable,

the mother was requested. This practice was not

continued in subsequent years because of interviewer

reports of objections from fathers who were Screener

respondents.

If a child was enrolled in 6th through 12th grade

but did not live with a parent or guardian, that

youth was considered an emancipated youth. A

special emancipated youth interview was

conducted that included some questions that were

usually asked only of parents. For this reason,

the emancipated youth interviews may be

considered with the parent interviews for some

analyses. The responses of the emancipated

youth are included in the SS&D data file.

NHES:95

The interviews for the ECPP component were

conducted with the most knowledgeable

parents/guardians of sampled children aged 0 to

10 years who were in third grade or below. The

within-household sample size was limited to two

eligible children to limit the amount of time

required to interview parents in households with

a large number of eligible children. In

households with one or two eligible children, all

the eligible children were sampled. If there were

more than two eligible children in the household,

two were sampled. In these households, children

in kindergarten were sampled at 1.5 times the

rate for other children to improve the precision of

single-year estimates for kindergartners. 

Any adult aged 16 years or older not currently

enrolled in secondary school was eligible for

sampling for the AE component. Sampled adults

who said they were on active duty in the U.S.

Armed Forces were classified as ineligible for the

interview. Unlike the NHES:91, all households

were screened for AE in the NHES:95. This was

necessary because adults without a high school

diploma or its equivalent, especially those who

were AE participants, were of great interest. 

This population is relatively rare, so all

households had to be screened for AE to achieve

the desired sample sizes.

In the screening interview, each adult was

classified as being in one of four sampling

categories: 1) low education, participated in adult

education (LP); 2) low education, did not

participate in adult education (LU); 3) high

education, participated in adult education (HP);
15

and 4) high education, did not participate in adult

education (HU). After the adults were classified,

an unequal probability sample of adults was

selected; probabilities of selection were lowest

for HUs and highest, near certainty, for LPs. 

The sampled adult was the respondent for the

interview.

Some adults who were classified as participants

in adult education in the Screener reported in

extended interviews that they were not

participants and vice versa. This was anticipated

based on the NHES:91 findings and was taken

into account in the sample design. The

misclassification of persons in the screening

interview for sampling purposes did not bias the

estimates of participation, because these

estimates are based on the responses of the

sampled adult rather than another household

member.

NHES:96

The samples of persons were selected separately

for the Parent PFI/CI and Youth CI interviews

and the Adult CI interviews. Specifically, 95

percent of the household sample was designated

for sampling children and youth for the Parent

PFI/CI and Youth CI interviews. The remaining

5 percent of the sample was allocated to Adult CI

interviewing.

In the NHES:96, the Parent PFI/CI interview was

conducted with the most knowledgeable parents

or guardians of a sample of children from age 3

through 12th grade, with a maximum age of 20. 

In households with one or more children from age

3 through 5th grade (younger children), one child

in the household was sampled for the survey. In

households with one or more children in 6th

through 12th grade (older children), one child

was sampled. Thus, the within-household sample

size was limited to two eligible children, and two

children were sampled only when both younger

and older children were in the household. This

design limited the amount of time required for the

survey for parents in households with a large

number of eligible children. Unlike the

NHES:93, emancipated youth (those who did not

live with a parent or guardian) were not sampled

for interviews because of the focus on parental

involvement in the NHES:96.

One youth was sampled for the Youth CI

component in households with one or more youth

in grades 6 through 12. The interviews with

youth were conducted only for those youth in

grades 6 through 12 with completed Parent

PFI/CI interviews. This allowed the parent the

opportunity to give an informed consent for the

interviewing of their child (the issues covered in

the Youth CI interview were included in the

Parent PFI/CI interview). All youth in grades 6

through 12 whose parents completed an interview

were selected for the Youth CI interview. 

Because households may have had up to two

Parent PFI/CI interviews and up to one Youth CI

interview, the maximum number of interviews

per household was three.

In the 5 percent of the household sample set aside

for the Adult CI component, exactly one adult

age 18 and older not in elementary or secondary

school and not on active duty in the Armed

Forces was sampled for an Adult CI interview. 

No other interviews were conducted in these

households. The sampled adult responded to the

interview.

Data Collection

This section discusses the data collection

approaches used in the NHES. Data collection

for each NHES survey took place over a 3 to 4

month period beginning in January of each

survey year. Training of the data collection staff

preceded each survey. In the sections that

follow, the training and calling protocols are

briefly presented.

Interviewer Training

The data collection process began with the

training of telephone interviewers and

supervisors. Intensive interview training has been
16

a feature of the NHES from its inception and is

considered a critical quality-control activity. The

amount of time spent on interviewer training for

the NHES varied from 16 to 20 hours, depending

on the needs of the particular components. 

Interviewer training was conducted over a period

of about 3 weeks just prior to and following the

start of each data collection. More than 300

interviewers were trained for each cycle of the

study, in groups of about 35. Each group

received training related to the conduct of the

NHES following basic training in general

interviewing techniques and the use of the CATI

system. Training was followed by a scheduled 4-

hour "live" session that was closely monitored by

training staff and telephone interviewing

supervisors.

Interviewer training for the NHES was conducted

using the CATI system. In this way, the trainees

actually entered information in the CATI system

during training presentations, providing them

with hands-on experience prior to beginning data

collection. The training sessions included an

introduction to the study and the specific

components for that survey year. The majority

of training time was spent on interactive lectures

and practice interviews using role-play scripts

which gave the interviewers experience with each

of the survey questionnaires. Considerable time

was also devoted to procedures for contacting

households and respondents and methods for

avoiding refusals.

Interviewers were monitored extensively during

the role-play sessions, and during their early

sessions of live interviewing. Retraining was

given as warranted, and any interviewer who did

not meet the interviewing standards was released

from the study. Additional refusal avoidance

training was given to interviewers in the first

week of interviewing, after they had gained some

experience. Supervisors, project staff, and other

telephone research staff monitored interviewers

throughout the data collection period. After

approximately 2 weeks of data collection,

interviewers identified as having demonstrated or

potential skill in converting or avoiding refusals

were trained for refusal conversion (calling

households that did not cooperate in the initial

contact and asking them to agree to participate).

The survey staff included interviewers able to

speak English and Spanish. These interviewers

received the same English training as all other

interviewers and were then trained to conduct the

interviews in Spanish. All of the CATI screens

were translated into Spanish, and these screens

were available to bilingual interviewers at a

keystroke.

Calling Protocol

A detailed calling protocol guided the data

collection process. The process began by

requiring at least seven attempts to contact a

household and complete a screening interview. 

These calls were staggered on different days of

the week and at different times of the day over a

period of at least 2 weeks, including at least two

daytime calls, three evening calls, and two

weekend calls. Often, contact at a telephone

number was made on the first or second attempt,

and the case was finalized as a completed

interview or as a nonworking or nonresidential

telephone number. After about half the data

collection period was completed, those telephone

numbers that had not resulted in a contact after

seven calls were refielded for up to 7 more calls. 

As a result, most numbers not reached were

dialed at least 14 times by the end of the study in

an attempt to contact the household.

The NHES Screeners were completed with an

adult household member. If no household

members were sampled for extended interviews,

then the case was complete. If there were any

extended interviews to be completed, interviewers

attempted to conduct those interviews

immediately. If any respondent was not

available, a callback appointment was made. 

Repeated callbacks were made throughout the

data collection period in order to complete the

interviews.

For the NHES:96, two procedures were used to

eliminate some of the nonworking and
17

nonresidential numbers prior to data collection. 

These procedures were:

Business purge - all telephone numbers

were matched against residential White

Pages listings and Yellow Pages business

listings. Numbers that appeared only in

the Yellow Pages business listings were

classified as nonresidential and were not

dialed. Numbers appearing in both listings

were dialed.

Tritone test - the telephone numbers were

automatically dialed by computer; those

that received tritone signals (the three-bell

sound heard when a nonworking number is

reached) on two separate calls on different

days were classified as nonworking. 

These numbers were not dialed thereafter.

In addition to these procedures, special efforts

were undertaken to increase the Screener

response rates in 1995 and 1996. In 1995, the

telephone numbers of nonrespondents with about

one month left in the data collection period were

sent to a commercial firm to obtain a mailing

address. For those telephone numbers for which

an address could be obtained, a letter was mailed

explaining the study and asking the household to

cooperate. A similar procedure was used in 1996

except all telephone numbers were put through

the process prior to data collection, and a letter

was sent in advance of any telephone contact.

Another procedure that was used in an attempt to

improve response rates for the NHES:95 and the

NHES:96 was the handling of answering

machines. If an answering machine was

encountered, the interviewer left a message

stating the importance of the study and the fact

that interviewers would attempt to call the

household later. The message was left the first

time an answering machine was reached at a

number and then again near the end of data

collection.

Special procedures were used to handle cases in

which a language problem or refusal was

encountered in every survey. These are described

below.

Language problems. If the person answering

the telephone was not able to speak English, and

the interviewer was not bilingual and was not

able to identify an English-speaking household

member, the interviewer coded the case a

"language problem" and further specified the case

as either “hearing/speech problem,” "Spanish," or

"language other than English or Spanish." Cases

coded as language problems were placed in a

special work queue and bilingual interviewers

were assigned to work these cases. If a bilingual

interviewer encountered a Spanish-speaking

respondent on an initial call, the interviewer

immediately conducted the interview in Spanish.

Because the CATI system contained both English

and Spanish versions of the instruments,

bilingual interviewers were able to rapidly

convert their screens from English to Spanish

(and vice versa). Cases coded as hearing/speech

problems were called a second time. If an

interviewer was able to reach a household

member who could complete the interview, the

case was completed; if no household member was

able to complete the interview, the case was

finalized as a language problem.

Refusals. If the person refused the interview, the

case was classified as a refusal and placed in a

separate work queue for later assignment to an

interviewer trained in refusal conversion. 

Refusal conversion was attempted in nearly all

households in which someone had initially

refused to complete an interview. If the

interviewer indicated that the initial refusal was

"hostile" (e.g., profane or abusive), the case was

reviewed by a supervisor to determine whether

another attempt should be made. At least one

refusal conversion attempt was made for each

Screener or extended interview refusal, with the

exception of the "hostile" cases. For most of the

field period, conversion attempts were not made

until at least 13 days after the initial refusal.

A case was coded as a final refusal if a second

refusal was obtained when a refusal conversion

attempt was made. However, because of the
18

desire to increase the Screener response rate, an

additional refusal conversion attempt was made

for a subset of second refusals, provided neither

the first nor second refusal was hostile. All

Screener refusals were considered to be final if a

third contact with the household resulted in a

refusal. For extended interviews, cases were

coded as final refusals if the first conversion

attempt resulted in another refusal.

Response Rates

A response rate is the ratio of the number of units

with completed interviews (the units could be

telephone numbers, households, or persons) to

the number of units sampled and eligible to

complete the interview. In some cases, these

rates are easily defined and implemented, while in

other cases the numerators or denominators of

the ratio must be estimated.

Two types of response rates are presented for the

NHES. One is the completion rate, which

measures completed interviews for a specific

stage of the survey data collection. The other is

the response rate, which is the percentage of

interviews completed, taking all survey stages

into account. For example, household members

are identified for extended interviews in a twostage process: first, Screener interviews are

conducted to enumerate and sample household

members, and second, interviews are conducted

for the sampled members using extended

questionnaires. The failure to complete the first

stage Screener means that it is not possible to

enumerate and interview members of the

household. The completion rate for the second

stage is the percentage of sampled and eligible

persons with completed interviews. The response

rate is the product of the first- and second-stage

completion rates. All of the rates are weighted

by the inverse of the probability of selecting the

units. Table 3 summarizes the completion and

response rates for each component of each year

of the NHES.

Two features of response rates are apparent

when reviewing table 3. First, there are

substantial differences in Screener completion

rates for the surveys. The Screener completion

rates were higher for the NHES:91 and NHES:93

than for the NHES:95 and NHES:96. Second,

while completion rates for parents of sampled

children were consistently 89 percent or higher,

response rates for other extended interviews with

adults and youth were lower.

As noted previously, the screening approach used

in the NHES varied from one survey year to

another. In the NHES:91, a split-enumeration

design was used in which some households were

screened out as ineligible and others were

partially enumerated. In the NHES:93,

households without members age 20 or younger

were screened out prior to enumeration. The

NHES:95 and the NHES:96 designs included full

enumeration of all household members at the

Screener. The screening response rate for these

two later surveys were markedly lower than the

rates for the early collections. The screening

completion rate for the NHES:91 and the

NHES:93 were 81 percent and 82 percent,

respectively. In the NHES:95 and NHES:96, the

screening completion rate dropped to 73 percent

and 70 percent, respectively. An experiment

conducted in the course of the NHES:96 field test

examined differences in response rates under

conditions of full enumeration of all households

and enumeration of only those households with

members age 20 or younger. The results of that

research indicate that a substantial response

differential may result from the these different

approaches. (See An Experiment in Randondigit-dial Screening, Brick et al., forthcoming,

and An Overview of Response Rates in the

National Household Education Survey: 1991,

1993, 1995 and 1996, Brick et al., forthcoming.)
1

Table 3.—Weighted NHES completion and response rates, by survey year and component

Interview type Completion rate Response rate

NHES:91

 Screener

 Early Childhood Education interview

 Adult Education interview

NHES:93

 Screener

 School Readiness Interview

 School Safety & Discipline interview

 Parents of 3rd through 5th graders

 Parents of 6th through 12th graders

 6th through 12th graders

NHES:95

 Screener

 Early Childhood Program Participation interview

 Adult Education interview

NHES:96

 Screener/Household & Library

 Parent/Family Involvement in Education and

 Civic Involvement Parent interview

 Youth Civic Involvement interview

 Adult Civic Involvement interview

81.0

94.5

84.7

82.1

89.6

89.4

89.6

83.0

73.3

90.4

80.0

69.9

89.4

76.4

84.1

81.0

76.5

68.6

82.1

73.6

73.4

73.6

68.1

73.3

66.3

58.6

69.9

62.5

53.4

58.8

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Household Education Survey

(NHES).

Adults selected for the AE components in 1991

and 1995 had completion rates of 85 percent and

80 percent, respectively. Adults sampled for the

NHES:96 Adult CI component had a completion

rate of 84 percent. Completion rates among

youth in the NHES:93 and the NHES:96 were 83

percent and 76 percent, respectively. Youth

interviews were not attempted until a parent

interview about the sampled youth had been

completed. Therefore, there was a loss in

response associated with both the parent level

and the youth level, which largely accounts for

the lower response rates for youth. In the

NHES:93,

the interviewer asked the parent if the youth

could be interviewed for the study, but did not

explicitly ask for permission to conduct the

interview. This procedure was revised in the

NHES:96 and explicit permission was requested.

The change in procedure might be responsible, at

least in part, for the lower completion rate for

youth in the NHES:96. It is also possible that

the relative salience or sensitivity of the topics

(school safety and discipline and civic

involvement), as perceived by the respondents,

affected parent consent and youth participation.
21

Data Editing

Intensive data editing was a feature of both the

data collection and file preparation phases of the

NHES collections. Range checks for allowable

values and logic checks for consistency between

items were included in the online CATI interview

so that many unlikely values or inconsistent

responses were resolved while the interviewer

was speaking with the respondent. The CATI

system included an online "comments notebook"

in which interviewers could provide explanations

of unusual responses, for example, stating that a

respondent had confirmed that an out-of-range

value was correct.

Post-interview editing was conducted throughout

data collection, after data collection was

completed and prior to imputation, and after

imputation was completed. In addition to range

and logic edits, the post-interview edits included

checks for the structural integrity of the

hierarchical CATI data base and data integrity

edits for complex skip patterns. The postinterview editing process also included a review

of comments provided by interviewers and

problem sheets completed by interviewers.

Following the resolution of any problems

identified in post-interview editing process, data

preparation staff reviewed frequency

distributions and cross-tabulations of the data

sets in order check skip patterns and to identify

any skip pattern errors that might have been

introduced during data updates. Editing was

repeated following the completion of imputation.

Coding Open-Ended Items

Open-ended items were coded for the NHES:91

and NHES:95 AE components. These items

included AE courses, major fields of study for

college and vocational programs (NHES:95

only), industry, and occupation. Selected

relevant variables were provided to coders. For

example, course name, subject matter, major

field of study, provider type, course length, and

other courses taken were provided for coding AE

courses. Job title, job duties, employer name,

industry, and highest education were provided for

coding industry and occupation. In all cases, a

double-blind coding procedure was used, in

which two coders independently assigned a code.

 In cases for which these two codes were

discrepant, an “adjudication” coder was

responsible for reviewing the case and assigning

an appropriate final code. Following the

completion of coding, a senior coding supervisor

reviewed a systematic random sample of the

discrepancy cases and all cases assigned a code

of “other” or “unclassifiable.”

A number of items in each NHES survey

included categories of “other, specify,” in which

interviewers entered responses that could not be

classified in one of the precoded categories. 

Some examples of such variables include race,

job-seeking activities by parents and adults,

barriers to participation in adult education, and

reasons for home schooling a child. These openended text responses were reviewed by data

preparation staff and survey managers to

determine whether any answers should be

reclassified into existing response categories. In

some cases, additional response categories or

variables were constructed for frequently

occurring responses. Two examples of items for

which multiple additional categories were created

are barriers to participation in adult education

and reasons for home schooling.

Imputation

In the NHES, as in most surveys, the responses

to some data items were not obtained for all

interviews, resulting in item nonresponse. There

are numerous reasons for item nonresponse: 

some respondents may not know the answer or

may not wish to respond for other reasons; an

interview is interrupted and not continued later,

leaving items at the end of the interview blank; 

and responses provided by the respondent may

not be internally consistent and the inconsistent

items are set to missing. 
22

For most of the data items collected in the

NHES, the item nonresponse rate was very low.

Despite the low item nonresponse rates, some

data items with missing data were imputed for

the NHES:91, while for the NHES:93, the

NHES:95 and the NHES:96, all data items other

than text items (e.g., "other, specify" responses)

with missing data were imputed. The

imputations were done for two reasons. First,

certain variables were used in developing the

weights and complete responses were needed for

this purpose. These included the variables used

for raking and other variables, such as the

number of residential phones. Second, users were

expected to compute estimates using a variety of

methods and complete responses should aid their

analysis.

A hot-deck procedure was used to impute

missing responses. In this approach, the entire

file was sorted into cells defined by

characteristics of the respondents. The variables

used in the sorting were general descriptors of the

interview and also included any variables

involved in the skip patterns for the items. All of

the observations were sorted into cells defined by

the responses to the sort variables, and then

divided into two classes within the cell depending

on whether or not the item being imputed was

missing. For an observation with a missing value,

a value from a randomly selected donor

(observation in the same cell but with the item

completed) was imputed for the missing value. 

After the imputation was completed, edit

programs were run to ensure the imputed

responses did not violate edit rules.

For some items, the missing values were imputed

manually rather than using the hot-deck

procedure. This happened most often when the

variable was collected only once for the

household or involved complex relationships. 

Manual imputation was also used if a small

number of edit failures were found after the hotdeck imputations were completed.

For each data item for which any values were

imputed, an imputation flag variable was created.

The imputation flags were created to enable users

to identify imputed values. Users can employ the

imputation flag to delete the imputed values, use

alternative imputation procedures, or account for

the imputation in computation of the reliability of

the estimates produced from the data set. In

some survey components, the “don’t know”

responses for some questions may have a

different substantive meaning than other

nonresponse. These questions were still imputed,

but the imputation flags were set to a different

value to inform users of the original “don’t

know” response. The values of the imputation

flags used for this purpose in the NHES:93 are

different than those used for the same purposes in

the NHES:95 and the NHES:96.

Weighting Procedures

The objective of the NHES is to produce

estimates that can be used to make inferences

about the entire civilian, noninstitutionalized

population of the United States and for

subgroups of the population. Although only

telephone households were sampled, the weights

of the respondents were adjusted to totals of both

the telephone and nontelephone population

derived from appropriate reports from the

Current Population Survey (CPS). As a result,

any undercoverage in the CPS for special

populations, such as the homeless, are also

reflected in the NHES estimates. The potential

for bias due to sampling only telephone

households has been examined for virtually all

the population groups sampled in the NHES. 

Generally, the bias in the estimates due to

excluding nontelephone households is small. 

Coverage bias is discussed more later in the

section on data quality.

The procedures used to develop the weights for

the surveys are very similar. As a result, the

general procedures are outlined below and any

major deviations from these methods for a

particular survey year or component are

mentioned. The description is divided into two

stages corresponding to the stages of weighting;
23

first is the household level weighting and second

is the person level weighting.

Household Weights

The first stage of weighting in all the NHES

surveys was associated with the probability of

sampling of telephone numbers or households. 

The household level weight took into account all

of the factors that might have resulted in

adjustments due to the telephone numbers being

sampled at different rates. Two of these factors

that were common to all the years were the

adjustment to account for the differential

sampling rates by minority concentration and the

adjustment to account for households that have

more than one telephone number and, hence,

chance of being sampled.

In 1991 and 1993, an adjustment was also made

to account for the modified Mitofsky-Waksberg

method of RDD sampling. This adjustment was

no longer needed in 1995 and 1996 because the

list-assisted sampling approach was used. The

NHES:96 included an adjustment for the

oversampling in 18 states to bring the minimum

expected number of completed Screeners up to

500.

As noted in the previous section, the Screener

response rates for the NHES:95 and the

NHES:96 were lower than previous years. 

Analyses were conducted to determine correlates

of the response rate using data available about

telephone exchanges. For the NHES:95, the

variables correlated with the response rate were

then used to define nonresponse adjustment

classes, and the inverse of the response rate in a

class was used as the weight adjustment. The

nonresponse adjustment classes were based on

the following variables: metropolitan status,

census division, percent renters, percent owner

occupied, percent college graduates, median

income, percent black, percent Hispanic, and

percent age 0 to 17. The nonresponse adjusted

weights were subsequently used in all other

stages of weighting in the NHES:95 to attempt to

reduce the bias from nonresponse.

For the first time in the NHES:96, household

weights were needed to produce estimates from

the Household & Library data file. To ensure

that these estimates conformed to national totals ,

to reduce the bias associated with sampling only

telephone households, and to adjust for

nonresponse bias, the NHES:96 household

weights were adjusted to known national totals of

households using an iterative procedure called

raking. As a result of raking, the household

estimates match control totals of the number of

households formed using the following variables:

state, presence of children in the household,

whether the home was owned or rented, urban or

rural location, and race. These variables

encompassed all variables identified as important

in the analysis done to identify correlates of

nonresponse. The control totals were the March

1995 CPS total household estimate distributed

according to the 1990 decennial Census of

Population household distributions. The final

household weights are included in the Household

& Libraries data file.

Person Weights

The next stage of weighting was to form

weights for each extended interview in the

NHES. These are called person weights. For

example, in the NHES:91 person weights were

developed for each sampled child in the ECE

component even if the same parent responded

to both interviews. Thus, the estimates from

the NHES:91 ECE component correspond to

the population of children eligible for the

survey. Person weights were also prepared for

each AE interview in the NHES:91 and for

every other survey component for the other

years.

The first step in creating the person weights was

to assign the appropriate household weight to the

sampled person as a base weight that could then
24

be modified to account for other stages of

sampling, nonresponse, and adjustments to

known population control totals. The first

modification to the base weight was to account

for the within-household sampling of persons. In

some cases, like the ECE component of the

NHES:91, all eligible persons were sampled and

the factor was equal to unity. In other cases the

probability of sampling the person within the

household was much more complex. For

example, in the NHES:95 AE component the

probability of sampling an adult from the

household was a function of participation status

and education level and also depended on the

number and characteristics of the other adults in

the household. The appropriate factor was

developed for each component and survey year

and multiplied by the base weight to produce an

initial person weight for each completed

interview.

These person weights were then adjusted to

account for nonresponse. This step was not

necessary for the NHES:91 ECE and the

NHES:95 ECPP surveys because the completion

rates were so high for all the sampled children in

these surveys. In most of the surveys, some

characteristics about the sampled person such as

age, sex, grade in school, adult education

participation status, or education level were

collected in the Screener and used to form

nonresponse adjustment classes. The

nonresponse adjustment for respondents within a

class was the inverse of the within-class

completion rate for the extended interviews. In

some components, the nonresponse adjustments

were relatively constant over the classes because

the completion rates did not vary much from one

class to the next while in other components these

adjustments varied substantially. For example,

in the NHES:93 School Readiness component,

the nonresponse adjustment classes were six age

categories and the adjustments varied across the

classes from 1.09 to 1.14. On the other hand, the

adjustment classes for the 1995 AE component

were defined by the adult’s participation status in

adult education and by whether or not they had

completed high school. These nonresponse

adjustments varied by a factor of more than 1.5

across the classes.

The last step was to rake the nonresponse

adjusted person weights so that the estimates

from the surveys matched appropriate control

totals for the population being surveyed. The

raking procedure for the person weights was

identical to that described above for the final

household weights in the NHES:96. The only

differences are that the nonresponse-adjusted

person weights were the weights being adjusted

(rather than the household weights) and the

control totals were counts of persons (rather than

ouseholds). The source of the control totals of

the number of persons was the CPS for the

month corresponding most closely to the NHES

survey for which comparable estimates could be

produced. Although the variables used to form

the control totals varied from year to year and

component to component, they were very similar

because the main purpose of the raking was

always to reduce the bias in the estimates arising

from the failure to sample nontelephone

households. Typically, the control totals

involved some combination of the following

variables: whether the home was owned or

rented, race/ethnicity, household income, Census

region, urban or rural location, and age or grade.

The final person weights included in the public

release data files were the raked person weights.

Variance Estimation Methods

The sampling and estimation techniques

described above have consequences for the

analytic methods that should be applied in

making estimates from the NHES data. One of

the most important features is that the weights

should always be used when making estimates of

the population. These weights are important not

only for estimates of totals, but also for estimates

of means and proportions. 

The sampling and estimation procedures also

have an important impact on the estimates of the

reliability of the estimates from the NHES. The

standard errors of the estimates are affected by
25

these procedures. If the standard errors are

computed using standard statistical software such

as SAS or SPSS, they will underestimate the

actual standard errors for most estimates because

these software packages assume the data are

from simple random samples. In fact, the data

are the product of very complex procedures that

may differ substantially from a sample random

sample.

The two major methods of producing

approximate standard errors for complex samples

are replication methods and Taylor series

approximations. Special software is available

for both methods, and the NHES data support

either type of analysis. A brief description of the

software and methods of using it for the NHES

data file follows.

The replication method involves splitting the

entire sample into a set of groups, or replicates,

based on the actual sample design of the survey. 

The survey estimates can then be estimated for

each of the replicates by creating replicate

weights that mimic the actual sample design and

estimation procedures used in the full sample. 

The variation in the estimates computed from the

replicate weights can then be used to estimate the

sampling errors of the estimates from the full

sample. Replicate weights have been included in

all the NHES data files to make this application

relatively simple.

WesVarPC is software developed for personal

computers under Windows that produces

estimates and their standard errors using

replication methods. The replication method is

especially useful for the NHES because this is

the only method that accounts for both

nonresponse adjustments and the raking

adjustments to the population control totals in the

estimation of the standard errors. WesVarPC

currently supports a wide variety of estimates

(totals, means, proportions, ratios, and userdefined functions of estimates) as well as

procedures for estimating linear and logistic

regression coefficients. WesVarPC can read SAS

(version 604), SAS Transport, and SPSS for

Windows, dBase, and ASCII files.

The WesVarPC software and documentation is

available free of charge through the Internet

(http://www.westat.com) or by sending an e-mail

message to wesvar@westat.com. Those without

access to the Internet but interested in obtaining a

copy of WesVarPC may also write to: Maida

Montes, Westat, Inc., 1650 Research Boulevard,

Rockville, MD 20850. 

The Taylor series approach can also be used for

the NHES. The two most commonly used

software packages for this approach are

SUDAAN and PCCARP. Both of these

programs are for personal computers and can be

used to compute estimates of totals, means, and

proportions as well as linear and logistic

regression coefficients. Neither can account for

nonresponse or raking adjustments to the

weights, but for many estimates these

adjustments are not critical for estimating the

standard errors.

SUDAAN is available through the Research

Triangle Institute. Information on obtaining the

software, including cost information, can be

obtained by writing to Dr. Babu Shah, Research

Triangle Institute, P.O. Box 12194, Research

Triangle Park, NC 27709. Information on

PCCARP, including costs, can be obtained by

writing to Dr. Wayne Fuller, Department of

Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

50010.

An approach that is frequently used for complex

analysis such as regression is to use the standard

statistical software for exploratory data analysis

and model fitting. Once the model is formulated,

the appropriate analysis using WesVarPC or

SUDAAN is used to estimate the parameters and

the standard errors. This method is frequently

used by analysts who are very familiar with a

particular software package and feel more

comfortable with using it during the exploratory

stage. This is often a reasonable compromise,

since the final estimates are produced using the

appropriate software.
26

Further information on the use of replication and

Taylor series methods is provided in the general

guide to using NHES data (Collins and Chandler,

forthcoming.)

Data Quality Assessment Activities

In addition to the data quality activities inherent

in the NHES design and survey procedures,

activities specifically designed to assess the

quality of data were undertaken for each

collection. Two data quality activities included

in every year are a reinterview program and an

analysis of telephone coverage bias. Other data

quality activities were included to address

specific concerns, such as the response bias study

for the AE component of the NHES:95 (Brick et

al. 1996). However, only the reinterview

program and the telephone coverage bias

activities are described below.

Reinterview Program

One of the methods used to examine the

reliability of the responses to interviews is the

NHES reinterview program. Reinterviews have

been conducted for the Early Childhood

component of the NHES:91, both the School

Readiness and School Safety and Discipline

components of the NHES:93, the Adult

Education component of the NHES:95, and for

the Parent and Family Involvement and Civic

Involvement components of the NHES:96. 

The reliability of the responses to the interviews 

were estimated by reinterviewing a sample of

respondents and asking them a subset of the same

items included in the original interview. The

reinterview procedure did not account for all the

measurement errors in the interviewing process. 

For example, systematic errors that would be

made in both the original interview and the

reinterview were not discovered with this

approach. Rather, the statistics produced by

comparing the original and reinterview responses

estimated the consistency of reporting, assuming

both interviews were conducted under the same

general conditions.

A general review of the design and analysis of

reinterviews presented by Forsman and Schreiner

(1991) is useful background for understanding

the goals and methods used in the NHES

reinterview program. Brick et al. (1994) discuss

the use of reinterview data in the broader context

of other nonsampling errors. The goals of the

NHES reinterview program were as follows:

To identify survey items that were not

reliable, i.e., the two interviews did not

elicit the same response;

To quantify the magnitude of the response

variance for groups of items collected

from the same respondent at two different

times; and

To provide feedback to improve the design

of questionnaire items for future surveys.

In the NHES reinterviews, the same respondents

were asked to respond to the same items on

different occasions. In order to limit the response

burden of the reinterview program, only selected

items were included in the reinterviews. The item

selection criteria focused on the inclusion of key

survey statistics (for example, frequency of

reading to children), items that were expected to

have a potential for measurement error based on

cognitive laboratory or field test findings, and

items required to control the question skip

patterns for the reinterview. The results of the

reinterviews were used to modify later NHES

surveys and to give some guidance to users about

the reliability of responses for specific items in

the data files (Nolin and Chandler 1997).

Coverage Bias

Another data quality activity in the NHES is

research concerning the bias resulting from

excluding nontelephone households from the
27

survey. Bias is the expected difference between

the estimates from the survey and the actual

population value. For example, if all telephone

households were included in the survey and

responded to the required interviews, the

difference between the estimate from the survey

and the actual population value (which includes

the responses of persons living in nontelephone

households) is the bias due to incomplete

coverage. Since the NHES is based on a sample,

the bias is defined as the expected or average

value of this difference over all possible samples.

Every household survey is subject to some

undercoverage bias, the result of some members

of the target population being either deliberately

or inadvertently missed in the survey. Telephone

surveys like the NHES are subject to an

additional source of bias because only about 93

percent of all the households in the United States

have a telephone. Even more problematic is the

fact that the percentage of households without

telephones varies from one subgroup of the

population to another.

Because of uncertainty on how the variability in

telephone coverage affects statistics gathered in

the NHES, special analysis of the bias associated

with telephone coverage and its potential impact

on estimates from the NHES was conducted for

each cycle of the survey system. For each

assessment of coverage bias, data from the CPS

were used to evaluate the differences between

estimates for telephone households and estimates

for the entire population.

Two types of comparisons were made using the

CPS data. First, estimates for telephone and

nontelephone households were compared in order

to examine the extent of the disparity between

these two groups of households on key statistics

of interest. Second, weights for telephone

households from the CPS were adjusted using the

raking procedures used in the development of

weights for NHES interviews. The adjusted

estimates from the CPS telephone households

were compared to estimates from all households,

including those with and without telephones. 

The coverage research showed that, for most

estimates, the bias due to not sampling

nontelephone households is small, but there are

important exceptions. For subgroups with

characteristics that are highly correlated with not

having a telephone, such as the poor, the

coverage bias can be large. An important

example of this problem is estimates of high

school dropouts. No adjustments could be found

to adequately reduce the amount of bias in these

estimates despite significant research into this

topic.

NHES Data Sets

NHES data are made available to the public. 

Each data set includes administrative variables;

characteristics of respondents and, in many

cases, other household members; questionnaire

variables; derived variables formed by combining

other variables; weights; replicate weights; and

imputation flags. In order to protect the

confidentiality of NHES respondents, any

identifying information or variables that could, in

combination, lead to the identification of

individual respondents are removed from the data

files prior to their release. 

The public-use data sets are distributed on CDROM. The NHES CD-ROM also contains the

Data File User's Manuals for each data set, a

user's manual for the Electronic CodeBook, and a

general guide to using NHES data. Data sets are

accessed through the menu-driven Electronic

CodeBook (ECB).

Using this program, analysts can view question

wording and frequency distributions, "tag"

variables of interest, subset the population using

selected variables (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, sex,

and enrollment status), and output the SAS,

SPSS for DOS, or SPSS for Windows syntax

code needed to create an analysis file.

Restricted-use data sets are also available under

a special licensing agreement with NCES. The

restricted-use files contain detailed information
28

that does not appear on the public-use data sets. 

Text items provided on these data files

include"other, specify" responses, names of

courses taken, text items describing employment

that were used to code industry and occupation,

and so on. For the NHES:93 through NHES:96,

the restricted use data sets also contain a large

number of variables describing the demographic

characteristics of the area in which the sampled

household is located. These variables were

extracted from the 1990 Census of Population

Summary Tape File 3B by matching the

respondent's ZIP code to the Census information.

Persons interested in obtaining the restricted data

sets for the NHES should contact Cynthia Barton

of the NCES Statistical Standards and Services

Group at Cynthia_Barton@ed.gov or at (202)

219-2199.

NHES Publications

A complete list of NHES data products,

publications, and working papers can be found at

www.ed.gov/NCES/NHES or can be obtained by

calling Kathryn Chandler of NCES at (202)

219-1767.
29

References

Brick, J.M., Cahalan, M., Gray, L., Severynse, J., and Stowe, P. (1994). A Study of Selected Sampling

Errors in the 1991 Survey of Research College Graduates. Technical Report. NCES 95-

640. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education

Statistics.

Brick, J.M., Collins, M.A., and Chandler, K.A. (forthcoming). An Experiment in Random-Digit-Dial

Screening. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education

Statistics.

Brick, J.M., Collins, M.A., and Chandler, K.A. (forthcoming). An Overview of Response Rates in the

National Household Education Survey: 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1996. Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Brick, J.M., Kim, K., Nolin, M.J., and Collins, M.A. (1996). Estimation of Response Bias in the

NHES:95 Adult Education Survey. NCES Working Paper 96-13. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Brick, J.M. and Waksberg, J. (1991). Avoiding sequential sampling with random digit dialing. Survey

Methodology. 17(1): 27-42.

Brick, J.M., Waksberg, J., Kulp, D., and Starer, A. (1995). Bias in list-assisted telephone samples. 

Public Opinion Quarterly. 59(2): 218-235.

Casady, R.J. and Lepkowski, J.M. (1993). Stratified telephone survey designs. Survey Methodology. 

19(1): 103-113.

Collins, M.A., and Chandler, K. (forthcoming). A Guide to Using Data from the National Household

Education Survey (NHES). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center

for Education Statistics.

Forsman, G. and Schreiner, I. (1991). The design and analysis of reinterviews: An overview. In Biemer,

P., Groves, R., Lyberg, L., Mathiowetz,, N., and Sudman, S. (eds.) Measurement Error in

Surveys. 279-302. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, S. (1987). Trends in Adult Education: 1969-1984. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Education, Center for Education Statistics.

Morgan, R.L., Hunt, E.S., and Carpenter, J.M. (1990). Classification of Instructional Programs. NCES

91-396. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research

and Improvement.

Mohadjer, L., and West, J. (1992). Effectiveness of Oversampling Blacks and Hispanics in the NHES

Field Test. NCES 92-104. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National

Center for Education Statistics.
30

Nolin, M.J., and Chandler, K.A. (1996). Use of Cognitive Laboratories and Recorded Interviews in the

National Household Education Survey. NCES 96-332. Washington, DC: U.S. Department

of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Standard Industrial Classification Manual. (1987). Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President,

Office of Management and Budget.

Standard Occupation Classification Manual. (1980). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce,

Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards.

Waksberg, J. (1978). Sampling methods for random digit dialing. Journal of the American Statistical

Association. 73(361): 40-46.