National Household Education Survey 

2016 (NHES:2016)

Full-scale Data Collection

OMB# 1850-0768 v.11

Part B

APRIL 2015
i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DESCRIPTION OF STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY ......................................................... 1

B.1 Respondent Universe and Statistical Design and Estimation .................................... 1

B.1.1 Sampling Households..................................................................................... 1

B.1.2 Within-Household Sampling.......................................................................... 2

B.1.3 Expected Yield............................................................................................... 3

B.1.4 Reliability....................................................................................................... 4

B.1.5 Estimation Procedures.................................................................................... 4

B.1.6 Nonresponse Bias Analysis............................................................................ 5

B.2 Statistical Procedures for Collection of Information ................................................. 6

B.3 Methods for Maximizing Response Rates................................................................. 10

B.4 Tests of Procedures and Methods.............................................................................. 11

B.5 Individuals Responsible for Study Design and Performance .................................... 11

List of Tables

Table Page

1 Expected percentage of households with eligible children or adults, by 

sampling domain........................................................................................................ 3

2 Expected numbers sampled and expected numbers of completed screeners 

and topical surveys .................................................................................................... 3

3 Numbers of completed topical interviews in previous NHES surveys administrations 4

4 Margins of error for screener..................................................................................... 4

5 Margins of error for topical surveys.......................................................................... 4

List of Figures

Figure

1 Screener Data Collection ........................................................................................... 8

2 Topical Mailing Plan – ECPP/PFI............................................................................. 9

3 Topical Mailing Plan – ATES ................................................................................... 10
1

PART B. DESCRIPTION OF STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY

B.1 Respondent Universe and Statistical Design and Estimation

Historically, an important purpose of the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) has been to 

collect repeated measurements of the same phenomena at different points in time. Decreasing response rates during 

the past decade required NCES to redesign the NHES. This redesign involved changing the sampling frame from a 

list-assisted Random Digit Dial (RDD) to an Address-Based Sample (ABS) frame. The mode of data collection also 

changed from telephone, interviewer-administered to mail, self-administered.

The last NHES data collection prior to the redesign was conducted in 2007 and included the PFI and the School 

Readiness (SR) survey1. The NHES:2012 comprised of the PFI and ECPP topical surveys, was the first full-scale 

data collection using an addressed-based sample and a self-administered questionnaire. The overall screener plus 

topical response rate was approximately 58 percent for both the PFI and the ECPP in 2012, compared to the 2007 

overall response rate of 39-41% (depending on the survey). The results suggest that the new methodology has the 

ability to address the response rate and coverage issues identified in the 2007 data collection.

The NHES:2016 will be an address-based sample covering the 50 states and the District of Columbia and will be 

conducted from January through August 2016. The household target population is all residential addresses except 

P.O. Boxes that are not flagged as the only way to get mail and is estimated at 126,115,692 addresses.

Households will be randomly sampled as described in section B.1.1, and a screening questionnaire will be sent to 

each sampled household.2 Demographic information about household members provided on the screener will be 

used to determine whether anyone is eligible for the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP) survey, the 

Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) survey, or the Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES).

The target population for the ECPP survey consists of children age 6 or younger who are not yet in kindergarten. 

The target population for the PFI survey includes children/youth ages 20 or younger who are enrolled in 

kindergarten through twelfth grade or are homeschooled for equivalent grades. The target population for the ATES

survey includes adults ages 16-65 who are not enrolled in grade 12 or below or homeschooled for equivalent 

grades. Ages will be calculated based on information provided in the screener.

B.1.1 Sampling Households

A nationally representative sample of 200,000 addresses will be used. The sample will be drawn in a single stage 

from a file of residential addresses maintained by a vendor, Marketing Systems Group (MSG), based on the United 

States Postal Service (USPS) Computerized Delivery Sequence File (CDSF). MSG provided the sample for the 

previous NHES administration, NHES:2012, and for the NHES Feasibility Study (NHES-FS) in 2014. As in past 

NHES surveys, the NHES:2016 will oversample black and Hispanic households using Census data. This 

oversampling is necessary to produce more reliable estimates for subdomains defined by race and ethnicity. 

NHES:2016 will use the stratification methodology that was used for the NHES:2012 administration. The sampling 

design concentrates on achieving a significant sample of black and Hispanic households. The universe consists of 

Census tracts likely to contain relatively high proportions of these subgroups. The three strata for the NHES:2016

are defined as households in:

1) Tracts with 25 percent or more Black persons

2) Tracts with 40 percent or more Hispanic persons (and not 25 percent or more Black persons)

3) All other tracts

The Hispanic stratum contains a high concentration of households in which at least one adult age 15 or older speaks 

Spanish and does not speak English very well and will be used for the assignment of Spanish screener mailing 

materials. The sample allocation to the three strata will be 20 percent to the black stratum, 15 percent to the

Hispanic stratum and 60 percent to the third stratum. This allocation will provide improvement in the precision of 

estimates by race/ethnicity compared to use of a uniform sampling rate across each stratum, and will protect against 

unknown factors that may affect the estimates for key subgroups, especially differential response rates.

 

1 NHES:2007 also included an adult education module, but data collection was stopped due to low response rates.

2

In the web experiment, each household will receive a letter with a user identification code and URL address asking someone in the household to complete the 

survey by web.
2

In addition to stratifying by the race/ethnicity groups mentioned above, these three strata will be sorted by a poverty 

variable and the sample will be selected systematically from the sorted list in order to maintain the true poverty 

level proportions in the sample. The Census tracts will be used to define the two categories of poverty level as 

households in:

1) Tracts with 20% or more below the poverty line

2) Tracts with less than 20% below the poverty line

B.1.2 Within-Household Sampling

NCES is in the process of evaluating a number of sampling strategies designed to improve efficiency and reduce 

cost. The within-household sampling plan described below is an initial description of the plan, which assumes that 

no more than one adult or child will be sampled from any sampled household. NCES is currently considering the 

effects on efficiency and cost relative to household burden of sampling both an eligible adult and an eligible child 

from the same household for the topical stage of data collection. In addition, NCES is considering modifying the 

sampling probabilities for households with eligible children in order to better represent rare populations such as 

children being homeschooled. Based on the evaluation of the various sampling strategies, the final sample design 

will be selected and its description updated in this document by July 2015.

First-Stage Sampling: Age Group (Child or Adult)

The first stage of sampling is at the age group level (child or adult). Each household will be randomly predesignated as either a “child household,” or an “adult household.” This pre-designation will be referred to as the 

age group pre-designation. A household will be pre-designated as a “child household” with a .75 probability and an 

“adult household” with a .25 probability. Because eligible children comprise a smaller portion of the population 

compared to eligible adults, differential sampling is applied to ensure a sufficient sample size of the children. The 

pre-designation will only be used when a household has both an eligible child/children and an eligible adult/adults. 

If a household only has an eligible child/children and no eligible adults, that household will receive a child topical 

survey, regardless of pre-designation. Likewise, if a household only has an eligible adult/adults and no eligible 

children, that household will receive an adult topical survey, regardless of pre-designation (it is possible that 

households with only eligible adults will be subsampled).

Second-Stage Sampling for Households Selected to Receive a Child Topical Survey: Domain (ECPP or PFI)

The second stage of sampling is at the topical survey level, or the domain level. There are two topical surveys that a 

child could possibly be eligible for: the ECPP or the PFI survey. A child’s age, among other factors, will determine 

if the child is eligible for the ECPP or the PFI topical surveys. The eligibility criterion only allows a child to be 

eligible for one of the topical surveys, not both.

In addition to the age group pre-designation, each household will be pre-designated as an “ECPP household” with a 

.70 probability or a “PFI household” with a .30 probability. This pre-designation will be referred to as the child 

topical survey pre-designation. Because children eligible for the ECPP survey comprise a smaller portion of the 

population compared to children eligible for the PFI survey, differential sampling is done to ensure a sufficient 

sample size of the ECPP group. Similar to the age group pre-designation, this designation will only be used when a 

household has a child/children eligible for the ECPP topical survey and a child/children eligible for the PFI topical 

survey. If a household only has a child/children eligible for the ECPP topical survey and not the PFI topical survey, 

that household will receive an ECPP topical survey, regardless of pre-designation. Likewise, if a household only 

has a child/children eligible for the PFI topical survey and not the ECPP topical survey, that household will receive 

a PFI topical survey, regardless of pre-designation.

Third-Stage Sampling: Person Level

The third stage of sampling is at the person level. If any household has only one person that is eligible for the 

domain that was selected in the second stage of sampling, that person is selected to receive that topical survey. If 

any household has two or more people eligible for the domain that was selected in the second stage of sampling, 

one of those persons will be randomly selected to receive that topical survey. Therefore, at the end of the three 

stages of sampling, one eligible child or one eligible adult within a household that has a completed screener will be 

sampled for the ECPP/PFI topical survey or the ATES topical survey, respectively.
3

B.1.3 Expected Yield

As described above, the initial sample will consist of approximately 200,000 addresses. An expected screener 

response rate of 70 percent and an address ineligibility3rate of 11 percent are assumed, based on results from the 

NHES:2012. Under this assumption, the total number of expected screeners is 124,600.

The ECPP/PFI or the ATES topical surveys will be administered to households with completed screeners that have 

eligible children or adults, respectively. For the NHES:2016, we expect to achieve a total percentage of households 

with eligible children of approximately 28 percent, and for eligible adults a total percentage of approximately 83 

percent.4 Expected estimates of the percentage of households with eligible children or adults overall and in each 

sampling domain are given in Table 1, as well as the expected number of screened households in the nationally 

representative sample of 200,000, based on the distribution of household composition and assuming 124,600 total 

completed screeners.

Table 1. Expected percentage of households with eligible children or adults, by sampling domain

Household composition

Percent of 

households

Expected number of 

screened households

Total households with eligible adults 83 103,418

Total households with eligible children 28 34,888

Households with at least one ECPP eligible child and no PFI eligible 

children 6 7,476

Households with at least one PFI eligible child and no ECPP eligible 

children 16 19,936

Households with at least one ECPP eligible child and at least one PFI 

eligible child 6 7,476

NOTE: The distribution in this table assumes 124,600 screened households. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.

Estimates are based on calculations from NHES:2012.

Table 2 summarizes the expected numbers of completed interviews for the NHES:2016. These numbers take into 

account within-household sampling. A topical response rate of 75 percent is assumed for ECPP and PFI based on 

results from the NHES:2012, and 70 percent is assumed for ATES based on the 2010 ATES Pilot Study response 

rate. Based on an initial sample of 200,000 addresses and an expected eligibility rate of 89 percent, the expected 

number of completed screener questionnaires is 124,600. Of these, we expect to have approximately 9,696 children 

selected for the ECPP, 16,464 children for the PFI, and 61,882 adults selected for the ATES questionnaire.

Table 2. Expected number of sampled and completed screeners and topical surveys for households

Survey

Expected number sampled 

NHES:2016

Expected number of completed 

interviews NHES:2016

Household screeners 200,000 124,600

ECPP 9,696 7,271

PFI 16,464 12,348

ATES 61,882 43,317

Table 3 shows the number of ECPP and PFI completed interviews from previous NHES surveys administrations.

Table 3. Numbers of completed topical interviews in previous NHES surveys administrations

Number of 

completed topical 

interviews

NHES surveys administration

1993 1995 1996 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2012

ECPP † 7,564 † 6,939 6,749 † 7,209 † 7,893

PFI 19,144 † 17,774 17,652 † 12,422 † 10,681 17,563

† Not applicable; children in this category were not eligible for these topical interviews.

 

3

Ineligible addresses are those that are undeliverable. Once a screener mailing for an address is returned as a postmaster return (PMR), the address will be 

coded ineligible.

4

Percentages based on population proportions from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) of the Current Population Survey (CPS)
4

B.1.4 Reliability

The reliability of the sample sizes is measured by the margins of error. The reliability of the sample size is shown in 

Table 5. The value of p represents a survey estimate proportion, so if a survey estimate proportion is 70 percent, the 

margin of error is below .03 for an overall, 50 percent, 20 percent, and 10 percent characteristics. The same is true 

with a survey estimate proportion of 60 or 50 percent.

Table 4. Margins of error for screener††

Screener

value of p

1.96 times 

standard error 

- overall

1.96 times standard 

error - 50% 

characteristic

1.96 times standard 

error - 20% 

characteristic

1.96 times standard 

error - 10% 

characteristic

0.7 0.0034 0.0049 0.0077 0.0109

0.6 0.0037 0.0052 0.0082 0.0116

0.5 0.0038 0.0053 0.0084 0.0119

†† A design effect of 1.3 was used in the calculations for this table.

The margins of error for the topical surveys are shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Margins of error for topical surveys††

Topical

value of p

1.96 times 

standard error 

- overall

1.96 times standard 

error - 50% 

characteristic

1.96 times standard 

error - 20% 

characteristic

1.96 times standard 

error - 10% 

characteristic

ECPP

0.7 0.0137 0.0194 0.0306 0.0433

0.6 0.0146 0.0207 0.0327 0.0463

0.5 0.0149 0.0211 0.0334 0.0473

PFI

0.7 0.0105 0.0149 0.0235 0.0332

0.6 0.0112 0.0159 0.0251 0.0355

0.5 0.0115 0.0162 0.0256 0.0363

ATES

0.7 0.0056 0.0079 0.0125 0.0177

0.6 0.0060 0.0085 0.0134 0.0190

0.5 0.0061 0.0087 0.0137 0.0194

†† A design effect of 1.3 was used in the calculations for this table.

B.1.5. Estimation Procedures

The data sets from the NHES:2016 will have weights assigned to facilitate estimation of nationally representative 

statistics. All households responding to the screener will be assigned weights based on their probability of selection 

and a non-response adjustment, making them representative of the household population. All individuals 

responding to the topical questionnaires will have a record with a person weight designed such that the complete 

data set represents the target population.

The estimation weights for the NHES:2016 surveys will be formed in stages. The first stage is the creation of a base 

weight for the household, which is the inverse of the probability of selection of the address. The second stage is a 

screener nonresponse adjustment to be performed based on characteristics available on the frame and screener.

The household-level weights are the base weights for the person-level weights. For each completed topical 

questionnaire, the person-level weights also undergo a series of adjustments. The first stage is the adjustment of

these weights for the probability of selecting the person within the household. The second stage is the adjustment of 

the weights for topical survey nonresponse to be performed based on characteristics available on the frame and 

screener. The third stage is the raking adjustment of the weights to Census Bureau estimates of the target 

population. The variables that may be used for raking at the person level include race and ethnicity of the sampled 

person, household income, home tenure (own/rent/other), region, age, grade of enrollment, gender, family structure 

(one parent or two parent), and highest educational attainment in household. These variables (e.g., family structure) 
5

have been shown to be associated with response rates. The final raked person-level weights include undercoverage 

adjustments as well as adjustments for nonresponse.

Standard errors of the estimates will be computed using a jackknife replication method. The replication process 

repeats each stage of estimation separately for each replicate. The replication method is especially useful for 

obtaining standard errors for the statistics that the NHES:2016 produces.

B.1.6 Nonresponse Bias Analysis

To the extent that those who respond to surveys and those who do not differ in important ways, there is a potential 

for nonresponse biases in estimates from survey data. The estimates from NHES:2016 are subject to bias because of 

unit nonresponse to both the screener and the extended topical surveys, as well as nonresponse to specific items. 

Per NCES statistical standards, a unit-level nonresponse bias analysis will be conducted if the NHES:2016 overall 

unit response rate (the screener response rate multiplied by the topical response rate) falls below 85 percent. 

Additionally, any item with an item-level response rate below 85 percent will be subject to an examination of bias 

due to item nonresponse.

Unit nonresponse

To identify characteristics associated with unit nonresponse, a multivariate analysis will be conducted using a 

categorical search algorithm called Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID). CHAID begins by 

identifying the characteristic of the data that is the best predictor of response. Then, within the levels of that 

characteristic, CHAID identifies the next best predictor(s) of response, and so forth, until a tree is formed with all 

of the response predictors that were identified at each step. The final result is a division of the entire data set into 

cells by attempting to determine sequentially the cells that have the greatest discrimination with respect to the unit 

response rates. In other words, it divides the data set into groups so that the unit response rate within cells is as 

constant as possible, and the unit response rate between cells is as different as possible. Since the variables 

considered for use as predictors of response must be available for both respondents and nonrespondents, 

demographic variables from the sampling frame provided by the vendor (including household education level, 

household race/ethnicity, household income, age of head of household, whether the household owns or rents the 

dwelling, and whether there is a surname and/or phone number present on the sampling frame) and data from the 

screener (including number of children and the number of adults in the household) will be included in the CHAID 

analysis.

In addition to the above, the magnitude of unit nonresponse bias and the likely effectiveness of statistical 

adjustments in reducing that bias will be examined by comparing estimates computed using adjusted weights to 

those computed using unadjusted weights. The unadjusted weight is the reciprocal of the probability of selection, 

reflecting all stages of selection. The adjusted weight is the extended interview weight adjusted for unit 

nonresponse (without the raking adjustment). In this analysis, the statistical significance of differences in estimates

will be investigated only for key survey estimates including, but not limited to, the following:

All surveys

 Age/grade of child or age of adult

 Census region

 Race/ethnicity

 Parent 1 or adult’s employment status

 Parent 1 or adult’s home language

 Educational attainment of parent 1/adult

 Family type

 Household income

 Home ownership

Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP)

 Child receiving relative care

 Child receiving non-relative care

 Child receiving center-based care

 Number of times child was read to in past week

 Someone in family taught child letters, words, or numbers
6

 Child recognizes letters of alphabet

 Child can write own name

 Child is developmentally delayed

 Child has health impairment

 Child has good choices for child care/early childhood programs

Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI)

 School type: public, private, homeschool

 Whether school assigned or chosen

 Contact from school about child’s behavior

 Contact from school about child’s school work

 Child’s overall grades

 Parents participate in 5 or more activities in the child’s school

 Parents report school provides information very well

About how child is doing in school

About how to help child with his/her homework

About why child is placed in particular groups or classes

About how to help child plan for college or vocational school

About the family's expected role at child’s school

 Parents attended a general school meeting (open house), back-to-school night, meeting of parent-teacher organization

 Parents went to a regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference with child’s teacher

 Parents attended a school or class event (e.g., play, sports event, science fair) because of child

 Parents acted as a volunteer at the school or served on a committee

 Parents check to see that child's homework gets done

Adult Training and Education Survey

 Certification or license

 Certificate

 Completed work experience program

The final component of the bias analysis will include comparisons between respondent characteristics and known 

population characteristics from extant sources including the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the American 

Community Survey (ACS). Additionally, for substantive variables, weighted estimates will be compared to prior 

NHES administrations if available. While differences between NHES:2016 estimates and those from external 

sources as well as prior NHES administrations could be attributable to factors other than bias, differences will be 

examined in order to confirm the reasonableness of the 2016 estimates.

Item nonresponse

In order to examine item nonresponse, all items with response rates below 85 percent will be listed. Alternative sets 

of imputed values will be generated by imposing extreme assumptions on the item nonrespondents. For most items, 

two new sets of imputed values—one based on a “low” assumption and one based on a “high” assumption—will be 

created. For most continuous variables, a “low” imputed value variable will be created by resetting imputed values 

to the value at the fifth percentile of the original distribution; a “high” imputed value variable will be created by 

resetting imputed values to the value at the 95th percentile of the original distribution. For dichotomous and most 

polytomous variables, a “low” imputed value variable will be created by resetting imputed values to the lowest 

value in the original distribution, and a “high” imputed value variable will be created by resetting imputed values to 

the highest value in the original distribution. Both the “low” imputed value variable distributions and the “high” 

imputed value variable distributions will be compared to the unimputed distributions. This analysis helps to place 

bounds on the potential for item nonresponse bias through the use of “worst case” scenarios.

B.2 Statistical Procedures for Collection of Information

This section describes the data collection procedures to be used in the NHES:2016. These procedures represent a 

combination of best practices to maximize response rates based on findings from the ATES 2010 Pilot Study, the 

NHES:2011 Field Test, NHES:2012, the 2013 National Adult Training and Education Survey (NATES), and the

2014 NHES-Feasibility Study (NHES-FS) within the Agency’s budget constraints. The NHES is a two-phase self-
7

administered survey. In the first phase, households are screened to determine if they have eligible adults or 

children. In the second phase, a detailed topical questionnaire is sent to households with the eligible adults or 

children. The NHES employs multiple contacts with households to maximize response. These include an advance 

letter and up to four questionnaire mailings for both the screener and the topical surveys. In addition, households 

will receive one reminder postcard after the initial mailing of a screener or topical questionnaire. Respondent 

contact materials are provided in Appendix 1 and survey instruments in Appendix 2.

Screener Procedures

Figure 1 presents a flow chart for the NHES:2016 data collection which will begin with the mailing of an advance 

notification letter in early January 2016. The NHES:2011 Field Test showed that using an advance letter was 

effective at raising response rates to the first questionnaire mailing which reduces the amount of follow-up required. 

Based on this finding, NHES:2012, NATES, and NHES-FS also used an advance letter. A questionnaire package 

will be mailed to households one week after the advance letter. The packages will contain a cover letter, household 

screener, business reply envelope, and a $5 incentive. Households selected for the targeted incentive experiment 

will receive either a $2 or a $7 incentive depending on their modeled response propensity. Many years of testing in 

the NHES have shown the effectiveness of a small cash incentive on increasing response. The NHES:2011 Field 

Test showed that a $5 incentive was more effective at increasing screener response than a $2 incentive. The NHESFS confirmed the positive effects on response rates of a $5 incentive versus no incentive. A Spanish version will be 

offered with the second, third, and fourth mailings in addition to the English version. Cases that are sampled as part 

of the Hispanic oversample, or where the frame vendor indicates a Spanish surname is associated with the address, 

will receive both the English and Spanish versions with the first mailing. The same version of the questionnaire sent 

in the first mailing will be sent in all subsequent nonresponse follow-up mailings. A thank you/reminder postcard 

will be sent to all sampled addresses approximately one week after the first mailing. All nonresponse follow-up 

questionnaire mailings will contain a cover letter, replacement screener questionnaire, and business reply envelope. 

A second questionnaire mailing will be sent to nonresponding households approximately two weeks after the 

postcard. Approximately three weeks after the second mailing, a third questionnaire mailing will be sent to nonresponding households using rush delivery (FedEx or USPS Priority Mail5

). Results from the 2009 and 2011 tests 

indicated that households with eligible children tend to respond to later mailings. For this reason we added a

mailing to our process and extended the data collection period for the NHES:2012 and NHES-FS. We will continue 

that protocol in the NHES:2016. The fourth questionnaire package will be sent to nonresponding households 

approximately three weeks after the third questionnaire mailing.

Topical Procedures

Topical survey mailings will follow procedures similar to the screener procedures. Households will receive a 

topical package in English or Spanish depending on the language they used to complete the screener. As described

earlier, households with at least one eligible person will be assigned to one of three topical survey mailing groups:

(1) Households that have been selected to receive an ECPP questionnaire only;

(2) Households that have been selected to receive a PFI questionnaire only;

(3) Households that have been selected to receive a ATES questionnaire only;

Within each group, questionnaires will be mailed in waves to minimize the time between the receipt of the screener 

and the mailing of the topical. Regardless of the treatment group or wave, households with a selected sample 

member will have the same topical contact strategy. The initial topical mailing will include a cover letter, 

questionnaire, business reply envelope, and a cash incentive. All nonresponse follow-up mailings will contain a 

cover letter, replacement questionnaire, and business reply envelope. The NHES:2011 Field Test, the NHES:2012, 

and the NHES-FS showed that a $5 incentive was effective with most respondents at the topical level. However, 

late screener respondents (those that responded after the third or fourth mailing) were more likely to respond to the 

$15 incentive amount. As a result, we will offer these late screener responders a $15 prepaid incentive with their 

first topical questionnaire mailing. All other respondents in the main sample will receive $5 with their initial 

mailing. Households with low response propensity in the targeted incentive experiment who received a $7 incentive 

for the screener will also receive a $7 incentive for the topical survey, unless they are a late screener responder in 

 

5 Because FedEx cannot deliver to P.O. Boxes, P.O. Box-only addresses will be delivered using USPS Priority Mail.
8

which case they will receive a $15 incentive. One week after the initial topical mailing, all households will receive 

a thank you/reminder postcard.

Nonresponding households will be mailed a second topical questionnaire approximately two weeks after the 

reminder postcard. If households that have been mailed a second topical questionnaire do not respond, a third 

package will be mailed by rush delivery (FedEx or USPS Priority Mail) approximately three weeks after the second 

mailing. Most households will be sent packages via FedEx delivery; only those households with a P.O. Box-only

address will be sent USPS Priority Mail. If the household does not respond to the third mailing, a fourth mailing 

will be sent via USPS First Class mail. Figures 2 and 3 show the topical mailing plans.

Figure 1: Screener Data Collection
9

Figure 2: Topical Mailing Plan – ECPP/PFI

1

st Mailing:

Cover letter, 

questionnaire, $5 incentive 

($15 for late screener 

returns), return envelope, 

First Class 

Reminder 

Postcard

Returned 

questionnaire?

2 nd Mailing

Cover letter, 

questionnaire, return 

envelope, First Class

Returned 

questionnaire?

Yes No

3 rd Mailing:

Cover Letter, questionnaire, 

return envelope, Fedex 

Returned 

questionnaire?

No

Yes

Yes

4th Mailing:

questionnaire, cover letter, 

return envelope, First 

Class

No

Begin 

ECPP/

PFI 

Topical 

Cycle

Send to 

ECPP/PFI 

Data 

Processing

Returned 

questionnaire?

Yes No Stop
10

Figure 3: Topical Mailing Plan – ATES

Survey Monitoring

Mail survey returns will be processed upon receipt, and reports from the survey management system will be 

prepared at least weekly. The reports will be used to continually assess the progress of data collection.

B.3 Methods for Maximizing Response Rates

The NHES:2016 design incorporates a number of features to maximize response rates. This section discusses those 

features.
11

Total Design Method/Respondent-Friendly Design. Surveys that take advantage of respondent-friendly design 

have demonstrated increases in survey response (Dillman, Smyth, and Christian 2008; Dillman, Sinclair, and Clark 

1993). We have honed the design of the NHES forms through multiple iterations of cognitive interviewing and field 

testing. These efforts have focused on the design and content of all respondent contact materials. As noted 

previously, we will include a respondent incentive in the initial screener mailing. Respondent incentives will also 

be used in the initial topical mailing. Many years of testing in the NHES have shown the effectiveness of a small 

cash incentive on increasing response. The Census Bureau will maintain an email address and a toll-free 

questionnaire assistance (TQA) line to answer respondent questions or concerns. If a respondent chooses to provide 

their information to the TQA staff, staff will be able to collect the respondent’s information on an Internet-based 

screener questionnaire. Additionally, the questionnaires contain frequently asked questions (FAQs) and contact 

information for the Project Officer.

Engaging Respondent Interest and Cooperation. The content of respondent letters and FAQs is focused on 

communicating the legitimacy and importance of the study. Past experience has shown that the NHES child survey 

topics are salient to most parents. In the NHES:2012, Census Bureau “branding” was experimentally tested against 

Department of Education branding. Response rates to Census Bureau branded questionnaires were higher compared 

to Department of Education branded questionnaires. Based on this finding, we will highlight the Census Bureau’s 

participation in the data collection.

Nonresponse Follow-up. The data collection protocol includes several stages of nonresponse follow-up at each 

phase. In addition to the number of contacts, changes in method (USPS First Class mail, FedEx, and automated 

reminder phone calls) are designed to capture the attention of potential respondents.

B.4 Tests of Procedures and Methods

Web Experiment: As described in Part A, section A.1, of this submission, the NHES:2016 will include a selfresponse internet experiment to determine if asking respondents to complete the survey on the internet results in an 

acceptable response rate. If an acceptable response rate is achieved, self-response internet surveys will be 

considered as a main mode of data collection in the future. Several key design features and the sample size of the 

web experiment are still under development and will be described fully in the update to this document that will be 

available by July 2015.

Targeted Incentive Experiment: As described in Part A, section A.1 and A.9, of this submission and section B.2. 

of this document, the NHES:2016 will also include an incentive experiment designed to examine the effectiveness 

of leveraging auxiliary frame data to target (a) lower screener incentives to households that have been with a higher 

modeled propensity to respond and (b) higher screener incentives to households with a lower modeled propensity to 

respond. Key design features and sample sizes for the targeted incentive experiment are still under development and 

will be described fully in the update to this document that will be available by July 2015.

B.5 Individuals Responsible for Study Design and Performance

The persons listed below participated in the study design and are responsible for the collection and analysis of the 

data:

Sarah Grady, NCES

Sharon Boivin, NCES

Lisa Hudson, NCES

Andrew Zukerberg, NCES

Carolyn Pickering, Census

REFERENCES

Dillman, D.A., Sinclair, M.D., and Clark, J.R. (1993). Effects of questionnaire length, respondent-friendly design, 

and difficult questions on response rates for occupant-addressed Census mail surveys. Public Opinion 

Quarterly, 57, 289-304.

Dillman, D.A., Smyth, J.D., and Christian, L.M. (2008). Internet, mail, and mixed mode surveys: The Tailored 

Design Method. New York: Wiley.