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The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) is a random digit dialing (RDD) survey program developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The surveys are designed to help NCES collect data directly from households about important education topics. Like many household studies that rely on landline phone sampling frames, NHES has experienced both declining response rates and increasing undercoverage rates. The study described in this report was designed to examine bias in the NHES:2007 due to nonresponse, as well as bias due to noncoverage of households that only had cell phones and households without any telephones. Results from this study suggest that there is no systematic pattern of bias in key statistics from the NHES:2007, though it might underestimate some indicators such as the percentage of preschoolers who watch two or more hours of TV in a typical weekday and overestimate some indicators such as the percentage of preschoolers with mothers who are not in the labor force. Seven appendices are included: (1) Advance, Refusal, and Community Letters; (2) Household Folder; (3) Interviewer Observation Form (IOF); (4) Sorry I Missed You Card; (5) Appointment Card; (6) Field Non-Interview Report Form (NIRF); and (7) Nonresponse Bias Estimates With Unadjusted Base Weights. (Contains 47 footnotes, 59 tables, 4 figures, and 15 exhibits.)

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) includes a series of random digit dial (RDD) surveys developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to collect information on important educational issues through telephone surveys of households in the United States. This report describes an experiment conducted in NHES:2003. The goal of the experiment was to test the effectiveness of various levels of incentives in gaining increased initial cooperation, refusal conversion, and overall unit response rates. Approximately 79,000 telephone numbers were included in the experiment. The results of the experiment indicate that small cash incentives, used during initial contact stages of the interview process (the Screener stage), can be effective in improving unit response, at least for NHES collections. The following are appended: (1) Response Rate Calculation Methods; and (2) Logistic Regression Analysis. (Contains 23 tables, 4 figures, and 1 exhibit.)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States that collects data on educational issues that are best explored through contact with households rather than with institutions. The NHES has been conducted in 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996. In the 1996 NHES (NHES:96), the topical components were parent/family involvement in education and civic involvement. The 1996 expanded screener feature included a set of questions on public library use. This working paper presents information on the potential for undercoverage bias in estimates from the NHES:96. Estimates from the NHES:96 are subject to bias because only households with telephones were sampled. Data from the October 1994 and November 1994 Current Population Survey of the Bureau of the Census are used to estimate the potential size of the undercoverage bias of the estimates. The analysis shows that the coverage biases for estimates of household characteristics are not very large. For estimates of voter participation of adults, the coverage biases are somewhat larger. This is due mainly to extreme differences in voter participation characteristics between adults in telephone and nontelephone households. For the adult civic involvement questions in the NHES:96, the differences may not be so large. However, undercoverage bias for some subgroups in the NHES:96 may be problematic, since coverage biases for Black households and persons, and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic households and persons, were larger than for the population as a whole. Overall, findings about the NHES:96 support the use of telephone data collection as a cost-effective survey procedure. An appendix contains nine tables from the analyses. (Contains 11 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States that collects data on educational issues that are best explored through contact with households rather than with institutions. In the 1996 NHES (NHES:96) the topical components of interest were parent and family involvement in education and civic involvement. This report examines errors arising from interviewing respondents in the Parent and Family Involvement and Civic Involvement (PFI/CI) and the Youth Civic Involvement (YCI) components of the NHES:96. The estimates from these components and every survey are subject to both sampling error and nonsampling error. Sampling errors, the differences between population values and the sample estimates that arise because data are obtained from only a sample population, are generally well understood, but nonsampling errors arise from a variety of sources and are more difficult to measure. Important components of nonsampling errors for the NHES:96 include coverage, nonresponse, and measurement errors. The reinterview program was designed to identify survey questions that were not reliable, quantify the magnitude of the response variance for groups of questions collected from the same respondent at different times, and to provide feedback to improve the NHES for future surveys. A sample of 1,808 interviews (854 parent and 954 youth) was selected for reinterview. In all, 806 parent and 892 youth reinterviews were completed. Overall, both reinterview analyses indicate that the impact of measurement error on the estimates is low to moderate, as measured by the gross difference rates. In addition, the net difference rates support the use of the gross difference rates as measures of response variance. The reinterviews served their major purposes of finding questions with high error rates and providing feedback to improve the design of future questions. An appendix contains the reinterview questionnaires. (Contains 10 tables, 1 exhibit, and 7 references.) (SLD)

The 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96) was a random digit dial telephone survey of households that was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat, Inc. The NHES:96 included two topical survey components, "Parent and Family Involvement in Education," (PFI) which collected data about family involvement in children's schooling, and "Civic Involvement," (CI) which collected data about participation in civic activities and attitudes toward government. This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the four public release data files of the NHES:96: the Household and Library File, the PFI and CI files, the Youth Civic Involvement file, and the Adult Civic Involvement File. Volume I contains information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures. Volumes II through V each contain a guide to the data file and its codebook, a discussion of data considerations and anomalies, and, in appendixes, the file layout and additional information. This volume contains the following sections: (1) "Introduction"; (2) "Description of Data Collection Instruments"; (3) "Sample Design and Implementation"; (4) "Data Collection Methods and Response Rates"; and (5) "Data Preparation." An appendix presents the screener for the four files. (Contains 1 figure, 17 tables and 25 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics, which has the legislative mission of collecting and publishing data on the condition of education in the United States. The NHES provides information on educational issues that are best addressed by contacting households rather than educational institutions. It is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States. As part of a methodological study, the NHES for 1991 contained an experiment to test the feasibility of using the NHES as a mechanism to conduct longitudinal studies of young children. This report describes the design, procedures, and results of the followup survey. In NHES:91, parents of children aged 3 to 8 years were surveyed about the care and education of their children for the NHES Early Childhood Education component. The feasibility of a longitudinal followup survey was tested by drawing a random subsample of children from that survey and attempting to locate the same respondents about 1 year later. A sample of 513 children was selected, and of the 452 parents or guardians located in the followup, 90% were successfully interviewed at the later date. Implications for longitudinal studies are discussed. It appears that the longitudinal response rate for such a survey would probably be about 62 to 65%. (Contains 8 tables, 1 figure, 1 exhibit, and 22 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics, which has the legislative mission of collecting and publishing data on the condition of education in the United States. The NHES provides information on educational issues that are best addressed by contacting households rather than educational institutions. It is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States. Households are selected through random digit dialing methods, and data are collected using computer-assisted telephone interviewing. Approximately 60,000 households are screened for each administration, and those who meet certain criteria are sampled for more detailed interviews. This report examines the reliability of two components of the NHES for 1993, the School Safety & Discipline and School Readiness surveys. Measurement errors were estimated by reinterviewing a sample of respondents and asking them a subset of items from the original interview. Of the 2,108 cases selected, 1,879 reinterviews were actually conducted, for an unweighted completion rate of 89.1%. Indexes of consistency were prepared for specific items. Many School Safety & Discipline items had moderate to high inconsistencies. An appendix presents the reinterview questions. (Contains 5 figures, 1 exhibit, 18 tables, and 16 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection effort of the National Center for Education Statistics that collects and publishes data on the condition of education in the United States. The NHES is designed to provide information on issues that are best addressed by contacting households rather than institutions. It is a telephone survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population that collects repeated measurements of the same phenomena at different times. This paper presents information on the survey design, data collection, interview timing, and data editing in the 1995 NHES Survey. The NHES:95 included two components about which respondents were interviewed: Early Childhood Program Participation and Adult Education. The first section, "Questionnaire Design," discusses the questionnaires developed for each component. The second section, "Sample Design," describes the procedures for sampling households and then for sampling household members for both components. "Data Collection" describes the NHES:94 data collection experience, including discussions of supervisor and interviewer training, data collection procedures and their results, special data collection activities, and data quality control. "Survey Administration Time" reports interview administration times for the components of the NHES:95. The time it takes respondents to complete survey interviews is an important factor in both response rate and response quality. "Data Editing" reviews the procedures used to ensure that data were complete and of high quality. Three attachments discuss range and logit edit specifications and edits for structural completeness, and present the database design diagram. (Contains 2 figures, 14 tables, and 10 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics that collects and publishes data on the condition of education in the United States. It is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized population of the country, and it focuses on issues that are best studied through contacting households rather than institutions. The primary purpose of the NHES is to conduct repeated measures of the same phenomena at different points in time. Full-scale implementations of the NHES have been conducted in 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996. This paper presents information on the NHES:93 survey design, data collection procedures, monitoring of interviews, interview administration time, and data editing. The 1993 NHES addressed readiness for school and safety and discipline in school. The School Readiness component covered a number of experiences of preschool children that have a bearing on readiness to start school. This survey used interviews with parents to sample 10,888 children aged 3 through 7, or in second grade and below. The School Safety and Discipline component focused on school environment, school safety, school discipline policy, and alcohol and other drug use and education. For this component, parents of 12,680 children in grades 3 through 12. The following sections are included: (1) "Overview of the National Household Education Survey"; (2) "Monitoring Interviews in the NHES:93"; (3) "Survey Administration Time for the NHES:93"; and (4) "NHES:93 Data Editing." Three appendixes contain a monitoring form, 22 graphs of monitoring results, and a database design diagram. (Contains 3 figures, 12 tables, and 17 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics. It focuses on educational issues that are best addressed by contacting individual households rather than institutions. The primary purpose of the NHES is to conduct repeated measurements of the same phenomena at different points in time. In 1991, the NHES collected information about the school readiness of children up to grade 2 and about school safety and discipline. This paper presents information on unit response, weighting, item response, and imputation in the 1993 NHES. The section on "Unit Response in the NHES:93" describes responses and completion rates for the NHES:93, including data on these rates for the Screener Interview, the extended School Readiness interviews, and the extended School Safety and Discipline interviews broken down for parents and students. "Weighting and Estimation" discusses the procedures used for producing the weights to estimate characteristics from the NHES:93 sample and to estimate sampling errors for those estimates. "Item Response in the NHES:93" presents item response rates for the NHES:93 questionnaire and discusses the methodology used to compute response rates. "Imputation in the NHES:93" describes the imputation procedures used in this survey, which was the first NHES survey to impute all missing values. (Contains 19 tables and 7 references.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which has as its mission the collection and publication of data on the condition of education in the United States by providing information on those issues that are best addressed by contacting households rather than educational institutions. The NHES is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States. This paper addresses issues associated with the bias that might arise in estimates from the 1993 NHES because only households with telephones were sampled, and it assesses the data quality of recorded interviews from the survey. The focus in the study of bias is on the potential for bias in statistics for 3- to 7-year-olds corresponding to the School Readiness component population of the NHES:93. The analysis of undercoverage bias shows that the coverage bias for statistics on this age group is not large, even though large differences are reported for children living in telephone or nontelephone households. Results of the study of recorded interview data coverage indicate that the majority of the questions were read as written by the interviewer and respondents provided a codable response. Specific items that resulted in a greater than average number of problems are identified. Four appendixes contain the interview coding forms and frequency of rating information for the School Readiness Questionnaire, the School Safety and Discipline Parent Questionnaire, and the School Safety and Discipline Youth Questionnaire. (Contains 1 exhibit, 2 figures, and 17 tables.) (SLD)

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics. The NHES is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population using households selected using random digit dialing methods. Approximately 60,000 households are screened for each administration, and people who meet predetermined criteria are sampled for more detailed or extended interviews. This report is a continuation of research on issues related to biases that result from the inability to survey people who are in households without telephones. It describes a study of an alternative method for adjusting telephone survey data to compensate for coverage bias. The method is based on the observation that telephone subscription varies within households over time. Weighting adjustments that use the data from households that have telephones only sometimes during the year might be an improvement over the current way of adjusting data. Findings indicate that coverage bias associated with households without telephones could be important for some statistics, and data collected on telephone service interruptions can be used to reduce this bias by using a response probability type of adjustment. The benefits of the bias reduction appear to be large enough to offset the variance increases due to increased variability in the weights in the study, although the results may differ for different size samples. Further research is needed, however, before the procedure can be recommended. (Contains 8 tables, 7 figures, and 10 references.) (SLD)

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the School Safety and Discipline component of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93). Information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and processing is presented. The NHES:93 was a random digit dial telephone survey of households developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat, Inc. For the safety and discipline component, interviews were conducted with 12,680 parents of students in grades 3 through 12 and with 6,504 students in grades 6 through 12. The NHES:93 addressed readiness for school and safety and discipline in school through questions about the school environment. Chapter 1 introduces the survey, while chapter 2 describes the survey instrument. Sample design and implementation are in chapter 3, and chapter 4 considers data collection and response rate. Data preparation is described in chapter 5, and use of the file and codebook are explained in chapter 6. Data anomalies are described in chapter 7. Five appendixes provide the instruments, a list of variables, a guide to files and codes, and the codebook. Eleven tables and three figures illustrate the manual. (SLD)

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the School Readiness (SR) component of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93). The NHES:93 was a random digit dial telephone survey of households developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat Inc. For the SR component, interviews with 10,888 parents (4,423 parents of preschool children, 2,126 parents of kindergarten children, 4,277 parents of primary school children, and 62 parents of home-schooled students) were conducted between January and April 1993. The NHES:93 SR component focused on readiness for school and safety and discipline in school, and related issues of child development in a whole-child approach to readiness. Chapter 1 provides a survey overview, and chapter 2 discusses the survey instruments. Chapter 3 reviews design and estimation procedures, and chapter 4 considers data collection and response rates. Data preparation is described in chapter 5, and chapters 6 and 7 discuss the use of the file and codebook as well as anomalies in the data. The five appendixes contain the survey instruments, guides to codes, and the SR data file codebook. Three figures and seven tables illustrate the discussion. (SLD)

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data files for the Early Childhood Education (ECE) component of the 1991 National Household Education Survey (NHES:91). Information is presented about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures. The survey was a random-digit-dial telephone survey, which attempted to collect information on the condition of education in the United States from a non-institutional sample. The ECE survey component covered the following topics: (1) child care and early childhood program experiences; (2) kindergarten and primary school entry; (3) retention in early grades; (4) parental involvement in center-based programs and school; (5) the education environment in the home; and (6) household and family characteristics. Appendixes provide the NHES:91 questionnaire, listings of variables, listings of SAS and SPSS-X control cards, a guide to SAS and SPSS-X use, the SAS code for composite variables, and the codebooks for the ECE data. Five tables and four figures supplement the discussion. (SLD)

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data files (adult file and course file) for Adult Education (AE) component of the 1991 National Household Education Survey (NHES:91). The NHES:91 was a random-digit dial telephone survey developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and conducted by Westat, Inc. Data for the full-scale study were collected between late January and early May of 1991. The collection of data directly from non-institutional samples of individuals is a new initiative for the NCES and holds the promise of greatly enhancing the scope of issues covered by the NCES by providing information on many current issues in education. There were two general components of the NHES:91. The first of these was the Early Childhood Education component, concerned with the experiences of 3- to 8-year-old children. The second component pertained to the participation in adult education of persons aged 16 years and older. The introductory chapter, of the manual provides overviews of these components as well as information about the purpose of the study, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures. Following the introduction (chapter 1) the other chapters are: (2) "Description of Data Collection Instruments"; (3) "Sample Design and Implementation"; (4) "Data Collection Methods and Response Rates"; (5) "Data Preparation"; (6) "Guide to the Data Files and Codebooks"; and (7) "Data Anomalies." Six tables and four figures supplement the text. Six appendixes, comprising the greater part of the document, provide the NHES:91 questionnaire, adult file and course file variable lists, SAS and SPSS-X control cards, guidelines for using SAS and SPSS-X, SAS codes for composite variables, and adult file and course file codebooks. (SLD)

Die Verfasser legen die Ergebnisse von zwei Experimenten vor, mit denen die Wirkung von versprochenen Belohnungen bei einer Random-Digit-Dial-Untersuchung im Stadium der Gesprächseröffnung sowie im Stadium der Aufgabe einer anfänglichen Verweigerungshaltung untersucht werden sollte. In beiden Fällen zeigte sich kein Effekt. Dieses Ergebnis steht im Widerspruch zu mindestens einem weiteren Experiment aus jüngster Zeit sowie auch zum Einsatz versprochener Belohnungen zur Reduktion von Antwortverweigerung bei mehreren Meinungsforschungsinstituten. Die Verfasser diskutieren mögliche Ursachen für das Ausbleiben eines Effekts. (ICEÜbers), "This paper presents the results of two experiments carried out to test the effectiveness of promised incentives for a random digit dial survey (RDD) at the initial household contact (introduction) and at the stage of refusal conversion. The results of the experiments find no effect of at either stage of the survey process. These results are contrary to those found by at least one other recent experiment, as well as the use of promised incentives used routinely to convert reluctant respondents by several survey organizations. The possible reasons for not finding an effect are discussed." (author's abstract)

"Address-based sampling (ABS) with a two-phase data collection approach has emerged as a promising alternative to random digit dial (RDD) surveys for studying specific subpopulations in the United States. In 2011, the National Household Education Surveys Program Field Test used a two-phase ABS design with a postal or mail screener to identify households with eligible children and a mail topical questionnaire administered to parents of sampled children to collect measures of interest. Experiments with prepaid cash incentives and special mail delivery methods were applied in both phases. For the screener, sampled addresses were randomly designated to receive either 2 dollar or 5 dollar in the initial mailing. During the topical phase, incentives (ranging from 0 dollar to 20 dollar) and delivery methods (First Class Mail or Priority Mail) were assigned randomly but depended on how quickly the household had responded to the screener. The paper first evaluates the effects of incentives on response rates, and then examines incentive levels for attracting the hard-to-reach groups and improving sample composition. The impact of incentive on data collection cost is also examined." (author's abstract)

This paper identifies new opportunities for innovation and expansion on current survey practice in the design of a new household panel survey, including an increased use of new and mobile technologies, more frequent data collection, modified clustering, and use of non-traditional survey measures such as administrative data, planned missing/matrix sampling questionnaire design, real-time data collection, and biomarkers. These innovative data collection methods require rethinking traditional panel survey methods, but can help reduce respondent burden and expand on current social science knowledge. The paper concludes that a new household panel survey would improve knowledge about important social, economic and health issues facing the US, and would provide a useful test bed for new hypotheses and innovative methods of data collection.

OBJECTIVES: We examined potential nonresponse bias in a large-scale, population-based, random-digit-dialed telephone survey in California and its association with the response rate. METHODS: We used California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) data and US Census data and linked the two data sets at the census tract level. We compared a broad range of neighborhood characteristics of respondents and nonrespondents to CHIS. We projected individual-level nonresponse bias using the neighborhood characteristics. RESULTS: We found little to no substantial difference in neighborhood characteristics between respondents and nonrespondents. The response propensity of the CHIS sample was similarly distributed across these characteristics. The projected nonresponse bias appeared very small. CONCLUSIONS: The response rate in CHIS did not result in significant nonresponse bias and did not substantially affect the level of data representativeness, and it is not valid to focus on response rates alone in determining the quality of survey data.