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National Postsecondary Student Aid Study

Jennifer S. Wine

John A. Riccobono

Education Studies Division

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What is the National Postsecondary Student 

Aid Study (NPSAS)?

 Periodic cross-sectional study of students enrolled in postsecondary 

education, at all levels, in a specific financial aid year

 Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 

the Institute of Education Sciences, U S Department of Education

 Authorized by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, 20 

U.S.C. 1015(d) which charges NCES with collecting information 

from aid recipients in the United States
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 To understand how students and their families finance 

postsecondary education, NPSAS provides data on:

– Current costs of postsecondary education 

– Resources used by students to meet those costs, 

including financial aid received, employment, and 

family support

– The student...

 Enrollment status and history

 Education experiences

 Background

– Issues specific to the longitudinal cohorts...

 Goals, education and career plans, decision making

Purpose of NPSAS
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2-stage sampling design with multiple sources of data:

 Institution sample: 

– Institution frame created from NCES’ Integrated Postsecondary 

Education Data System (IPEDS) 

– Up to 1,800 institutions are sampled from the frame.;

 Student sample: 

– Sampled institutions provide enrollment lists of students for a 

given financial aid year. 

– Students are sampled from within each institution, for a total 

study sample of up to 140,000 students.

Major Features of the NPSAS Design
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Major Features of the NPSAS Design 

(continued)

NPSAS collects data, on a flow basis, from multiple 

sources:

 Institutions:

– Enrollment list

– Student-level institution record abstraction 

 Students:

– Interview

 Federal and nonfederal administrative data bases:

– Matching based on SSN 

– e.g., CPS, NSLDS, National Student Clearinghouse, ACT, SAT
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 Serves as the base year data collection for two 

longitudinal studies 

– The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study 

(BPS) which follows first time college students, all levels

– The Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B), 

following new bachelor’s degree recipients, with a special focus 

on new teachers

Major Features of the NPSAS Design 

(continued)
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NCES Postsecondary Studies Timeline

NPSAS – National Postsecondary Student Aid Study

BPS – Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study

B&B – Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study

PETS – Postsecondary Education Transcript Study

NPSAS:87 NPSAS:93 NPSAS:96

BPS:96/98 B&B:93/94

B&B:93/97

NPSAS:00

BPS:96/01

B&B:00/01

B&B:93/03

NPSAS:04

BPS:04/06

BPS:04/09

NPSAS:08 NPSAS:12

BPS:12/14

BPS:12/17

NPSAS:16

B&B:16/20

B&B:16/17

B&B:08/09

B&B:08/12

NPSAS:90

BPS:90/92

BPS:90/94

PETS:09 PETS:09

3-year periodicity 4-year periodicity

PETS:17
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Challenge – Declining Student Interview 

Response Rates

 Screening devices 

 Increased use of cell phones with associated drop in 

use of land lines

 Unconventional schedules of the postsecondary 

student populations

 Concerns for disclosure

 Agency budget constraints

 Tight schedules for timely release of data

 NCES Statistical Standards
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Remedies for Declining Response Rates

1. Innovative locating and 

contacting strategies

2. Interviews conducted in up to 3 

web-based modes – selfadministered interview, 

telephone interview, in-person 

interview – across 3 phases

3. Strategic use of incentives
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Innovations in Contacting Sample Members

 Sources for student locating information 

– Enrollment lists

– Updates via study websites 

– Student record abstractions

– Administrative record matching 

– NCOA, FastData, and other vendors

– Prior interviews

 Tracing conducted at multiple time points

 Data collection announcements sent via US mail and 

email virtually simultaneously

 Subsequent contacts alternated among various options –

email and telephone prompts, letters, and postcards
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NPSAS Student Web Site
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Personalized Contacting Materials
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Experimenting with Contacting Procedures

 Use of Federal Express and US 

Express Mail 

 Envelope sizes

 Telephoned reminders

 Sources of passwords for web 

survey

 Prepaid incentives (cash and 

check)

 Inclusion of non-monetary gifts

 Frequency of prompts
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The Latest... Stop Action You Tube Video

 Highlights purposes of NPSAS:12 

and ways to participate;

 Offers college-age sample an 

alternative to letters, emails, and 

other mailings; and

 Establishes a common visual 

element for “brand recognition” as 

sample members move into the 

longitudinal follow up studies.
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A Multimode Approach to Interviewing

 Beginning with the 2003 data collection for the B&B 

longitudinal study, a self-administered survey option, 

developed on the web, was added to all student data 

collections, including NPSAS

 Same interview programmed for use across modes

 Adopted a 3-phase, sequential approach to data 

collection intended to minimize costs while maximizing 

responses per unit of time

Selfadministered 

interview

Telephone 

interview

In-person 

interview

(longitudinal 

studies only)

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
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Phases in Multimode Interviewing

 Phase 1 – Self-Administered Interview

– Offered at the start of data collection to the greatest number of 

sample members

– Specially-trained Help Desk staff troubleshoot web survey and 

computer problems 

– Primary mode of data collection for first X weeks of data 

collection

– Telephone interviews can be completed by Help Desk staff at 

sample member’s request – “call ins”

– Sample prompted by regular mail, email, and sometimes with 

telephoned messages

– Least expensive option 
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NPSAS Interview : Sample Question 
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NPSAS Interview: Use of Preloads, Prior 

Responses, and Real Time Data Checks
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NPSAS Interview: Response Coding
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NPSAS Interview: Nonresponse 

Conversion Text
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Phase 1: Multimode Interviewing Process

Completed? Done Yes

Self-administered Interview 

with Help Desk for Call Ins

Phase 1

Early Response

Period

(Up to 4 weeks)

No

Prompt 

Sample 

Member
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Phases in Multimode Interviewing (continued)

 Phase 2 – Outbound Telephone Interviewing 

– Traditional telephone interviewing or Computer Assisted 

Telephone Interviewing (CATI) with specially-trained interviewers

– Uses same HTML-based instrument as web survey, with 

embedded interviewer instructions

– Often serves to prompt sample members to complete the web 

survey

– Sample members can switch between modes to complete the 

survey

– More costly than web surveys
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NPSAS Telephone Interview: Interviewer 

Instruction – Read Until...
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NPSAS Telephone Interview: Interviewer 

Instruction – Probe 
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Phase 2: Multimode Interviewing Process

Completed? Done Yes

No

Self-Administered and

Outbound Telephone

Interviews

Completed?

No Yes

Phase 2

Production

Interviewing

(Up to 15 call

attempts)
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Phases in Multimode Interviewing (continued)

 Phase 3 – Nonresponse Conversion and Field 

Interviewing

– NPSAS Cross-sectional Study: 

 Traditional telephone interviewing with specially-trained refusal converters

– BPS and B&B Longitudinal Studies:

 Traditional telephone interviewing with specially-trained refusal converters

 In-person interviewing or Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) with 

specially-trained field staff

– Uses same HTML-based instrument as web survey, with embedded 

interviewer instructions

– Once moved to the field, sample members cannot easily switch 

between modes to complete the survey

– Most costly data collection method
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Assignment of Field Interviewers by 

Geographic Cluster: BPS:04/06
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Step 3: Multimode Interviewing Process

Done

Self-Administered and

Outbound Telephone

Interviews

Completed?

No

Yes

Phase 3

Nonresponse

Conversion

(With refusal or 

call criteria met)

Longitudinal

cohort and in geographic

cluster?

In Person Interviews

Yes

No
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Multimode Interviewing Process

Self-administered Interview 

with Help Desk for Call Ins

Phase 1

Early Response

Period

(Up to 4 weeks)

Completed? Done Yes

No

Self-Administered and 

Outbound Telephone 

Interviews

Completed? Yes

Phase 2

Production 

Interviewing

(Up to 15 call 

attempts)

Self-Administered and 

Outbound Telephone 

Interviews

No >Max

Phase 3

Nonresponse 

Conversion

(With refusal or 

call criteria met)

Longitudinal

cohort and in geographic 

cluster?

In Person Interviews

Yes

No

No <Max
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69%

31%

0

20

40

60

80

100

Self-administered 

interview

Telephone interview

Percent of completed interviews

Mode

Percent of Completed Interviews, by Mode: 

NPSAS:08

NPSAS:08

NPSAS:08
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58%

39%

3%

0

20

40

60

80

100

Self-administered 

interview

Telephone interview In person interview

Percent of completed interviews

Mode

Percent of Completed Interviews, by Mode: 

BPS:04/06
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Strategic Use of Incentives

 Beginning with the 2003 data collection for the B&B 

longitudinal study, an incentive was offered for interviews 

completed during the early response and nonresponse 

conversion phases

 Each of the postsecondary studies has experimented with 

approaches to incentives, including:

– Larger dollar amounts for early completion and nonresponse 

conversion, with no incentive or smaller dollar amounts during 

production interviewing

– Gift certificates as alternatives to checks

– Prepaid incentives – cash and check

– Lower/higher incentives paid according to modeled propensity to 

respond
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Incentive Plan with Multimode Survey 

Approach: NPSAS:08

Self-administered Interview 

with Help Desk for Call Ins

Phase 1

Early Response

Period

$30

Completed? Done Yes

No

Self-Administered and 

Outbound Telephone 

Interviews

Completed? Yes

Phase 2

Production 

Interviewing

$0

Self-Administered and 

Outbound Telephone 

Interviews

No >Max

Phase 3

Nonresponse 

Conversion

$30

Longitudinal

cohort and in geographic 

cluster?

In Person Interviews

Yes

No

No <Max
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48%

11%

41%

0

20

40

60

80

100

Early response0

($30)

Production 

($0)

Response conversion 

($30)

Percent of completed interviews

Data collection phase

Percent of Completed Interviews, by Data 

Collection Phase: NPSAS:08

NPSAS:08

NPSAS:08

NPSAS:08
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Recent Interview Response Rates

 NPSAS

– 2004 – 70.6 percent

– 2008 – 71.1 percent

 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study

– 2003 – 83.4 percent

– 2009 – 78.3 percent*

 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study

– 2006 – 77.2 percent

– 2009 – 80.2 percent*

*Preliminary rates, not for release.
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More Information

Jennifer Wine

Director, Longitudinal 

Studies Program

Education Studies Division

919.541.6870

jennifer@rti.org

John Riccobono

Vice President

Education Studies Division

919.541.7006

jar@rti.org