RN 990050
				ATTACHMENT A















STATEMENT OF WORK
National Household Education Survey
2001 and 2003


	




















	Table of Contents

I.  INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND		1
	
A.  PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THE PROCUREMENT		1
B.  ENABLING LEGISLATION		1	
C.  GENERAL FEATURES OF THE NHES		1
	C.1  Multiple Components in Each Collection		2
	C.2  Sampling through Random Digit Dialing		2
	C.3  Sampling to Produce Greater Minority Representation		2
	C.4  Sampling with Intent to Assess Change Over Time		3
	C.5  Use of Computer-Assisted Interviewing (CATI) Techniques		3
	C.6  CATI Interviews in Spanish		3
	C.7  Fast Turnaround		3
	C.8  Commitment to Data Quality		3
	C.8a.  Cognitive Laboratory Work		4
	C.8b.  Field Tests		4
	C.8c.  Maximizing Response Rates		4
	C.8d.  Reinterviews		5
	C.9  Technical Review Panels		5
	C.10 Adherence to NCES Standards		6
D.  GENERAL PLANS FOR THE NHES:2001		6
E.   GENERAL PLANS FOR THE NHES:2003		7

II.  SCOPE OF WORK		8
A.  GENERAL TASKS TO BE PERFORMED		8
	Task 1.		General Project Planning Meeting		8
	Task 1.1	Contractor Review of NHES Background Materials		8
	Task 1.2	Other Meetings with NCES		8
	Task 1.3	Briefing Materials and Briefings		8
	Task 1.4	Project Leaflet		9
	Task 1.5	Project Bibliography		9
	Task 1.6	Development of Data Security Plan		9
	Task 1.7	Initial Meeting with NCES		10
	Task 1.8	Project Management Plan		10
	Task 2		Technical Review Panel		11
	Task 2.1	Develop TRP Plan		11
	Task 2.2	Solicit Participation in TRP		11
	Task 2.3	Plan and Arrange TRP Meetings		11
	Task 2.4	Provide Meeting Summaries		12
	Task 2.5	Administer Other TRP Activities		12
	Task 3		Develop Survey Content		12
	Task 3.1	Hold Meetings to Identify Key Research and Policy Issues		12
	Task 3.2	Literature Review		12
	Task 3.3	Prioritize Research and Policy Questions to be Addressed		13
	Task 3.4	Review Designs and Instruments of Other Surveys		13
	Task 3.5	Prepare Content Outline		13
	Task 4		Develop Survey Instruments and Procedures		14
	Task 4.1	Develop Survey Instruments		14
	Task 4.2	Develop Data Collection Procedures		14
	Task 4.3	Conduct Cognitive Laboratory Research		15
	Task 5		Sample Design		15
	Task 6		Survey Design Report		16
	Task 7		IMT/OMB Clearance of the NHES Instruments		17
	Task 8		Develop CATI System		18
	Task 8.1	Specification of Range and Logic Checks		18
	Task 8.2	Programming of Survey Instruments		19
	Task 8.3	Testing of CATI System		19
	Task 8.4	Delivery of Testable CATI Instrument		20
	Task 8.5	Spanish and English Language CATI Screens		20
	Task 9		Field Test of Survey Instruments and Procedures		20
	Task 9.1	Submit Field Test Plan		20
	Task 9.2	Conduct Field Test		21
	Task 9.3	Submit Field Test Report with Revised CATI Instruments		21
	Task 9.4	Submit Design/Instrument Changes in IMT/OMB Memo		21
	Task 9.5	Submit Final Instruments		21
	Task 10		Hiring and Training CATI Interviewers		21
	Task 10.1	Develop Interviewer Training Materials		22
	Task 10.2	Recruitment of Interviewers		22
	Task 10.3	Interviewer Training Sessions		22
	Task 11		Data Collection		23
	Task 11.1	Data Collection Schedule		23
	Task 11.2	Quality Control Procedures		24
	Task 11.3	Progress Reports		24
	Task 12		Data File Preparation and Documentation		25
	Task 12.1	Data Coding and Editing		25
	Task 12.2	Data Conversion		26
	Task 12.3	Creation of Composite and Classification Variables		27
	Task 12.4	Item Nonresponse		27
	Task 12.5	Sample Weights		27
	Task 12.6	Public Release Files and User's Manuals		28
	Task 12.7	Restricted-use Data Files and User's Manuals		29
	Task 12.8	Disclosure Review Board		29
	Task 12.9	Maintenance of Necessary Data Files		29
	Task 13		Data Analysis and Reporting 		29
	Task 13.1	Analysis Reports		29
	Task 13.2	Standard Error Calculations		31
	Task 14		Methodology Report		32

	EXHIBIT 1.  SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES FOR NHES:2001		33
	EXHIBIT 2.  SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES FOR NHES:2003		35

	B.  REPORTING			37
C.  EXPECTATIONS CONCERNING QUALITY OF, CORPORATE SUPPORT
	FOR, AND TIMING OF DELIVERABLES		37
D.  THE ADJUDICATION PROCESS		38
E.  FORMS CLEARANCE		38
F.  ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS		39

Appendix A  Background Information on the NHES		40
Appendix B  NHES Publications List		45
Appendix C  Open-Ended Items		50	



        

	I.  INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND


A.  PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THE PROCUREMENT

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), United States Department of
Education (ED), requires a contract to continue the National Household
Education Survey (NHES) program.  This procurement includes the design and
conduct of two NHES collections-one in 2001 (NHES:2001) and one in 2003
(NHES:2003).

The NHES:2001 collection will include Early Childhood Program
Participation (last collected in 1995) and Adult Education (also collected
in 1995).  An additional topic will be included in NHES:2001 which will
cover After School Program Participation and Activities. Proposed topics for
the NHES:2003 are: School Readiness (last collected in 1993), Parent and
Family Involvement in Education (last collected in 1996) and an adult
component which will collect detailed information on work-related Adult
Education. 

Each collection requires random digit dialing (RDD) sampling methods
and computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) techniques.  Large
amounts of data need to be processed and analyzed and statistical reports
need to be written under tight time schedules; task schedules overlap, and
there are both planning and field operations that may be going on
simultaneously.

		 B.  ENABLING LEGISLATION

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) program was
established by the NCES in response to the immediate and continuing need for
quality and timely data pertaining to the condition of education in the
United States.  Specifically, the NHES is undertaken in compliance with the
mandate stated in section 404 of the National Center for Education
Statistics Act, P.L. 103-382 (20 USC, 9003):

"The duties of the Center are to collect, analyze, and disseminate
statistics and other information related to education in the United States
and in other nations..."


C.  GENERAL FEATURES OF THE NHES

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. Data are collected using computer
assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) techniques.

The methodology for any single fielding of the NHES is linked to the
research issues under study, the level of data required to address these
issues, and how precise the estimates generated from the survey data need to
be in order to meet the objectives of the study.  However, while the
specifications for each survey will vary, there are general features of the
NHES methodology that will stay relatively constant from one survey to the
next.  The general characteristics of the NHES sample design and the data
collection approach are described in the next sections.  Although these
general features have been used in previous NHES, and it is anticipated that
they will continue to be part of future NHES collections, the contractor may
propose alternative approaches to any aspect of the NHES.

C.1.  Multiple Components in Each Collection

Because of the high costs associated with screening large numbers of
households in order to meet the sample size requirements of NHES components
concerning young children, more than one population and set of issues has
been addressed concurrently.  Each of NHES:91, NHES:93 and NHES:95 included
two topical components; the NHES:96 included two larger components and one
smaller component imbedded within the screening interview.  The components
selected and the final sampling designs have sought to maximize the
probability of a household qualifying for inclusion in the survey, but limit
the burden placed on each household. (More details about these design
features can be found in Overview of the National Household Education Survey
91/93/95/96, NHES Technical Report, and in User's Manuals and working papers
for specific collections. These documents are fully referenced in Appendix
B.)

C.2.  Sampling through Random Digit Dialing

Random digit dialing (RDD) has been used for each NHES collection. 
However, the particular method of RDD utilized has varied.  For the NHES:91
and the NHES:93, a modified Mitofsky-Waksberg method described by Brick and
Waksberg (1991) was used.  A list-assisted method was used in the NHES:95
and again in the NHES:96. The list-assisted method eliminates the sequential
difficulties associated with the modified Mitofsky-Waksberg in that it is a
single-stage sample.  It also produces an unclustered and self-weighting
sample.  

C.3.  Sampling to Produce Greater Minority Representation  

One of the goals of the NHES program is to produce reliable
estimates of the characteristics of children's and adults' educational
experiences for totals and for subdomains defined by race and ethnicity.  In
each NHES, decennial Census information about telephone numbers has been
used to increase the likelihood of calling into minority households.  In the
NHES:95, for example, 100-banks were classified as "high minority" if at
least 20 percent of its population was black or at least 20 percent of its
population was Hispanic.  In NHES:93, "high minority" was defined as having
a population at least 20 percent black, Hispanic or Asian.  In both
collections, "high minority" numbers were sampled at twice the rate as "low
minority" numbers.  "Asian/Pacific Islander" was included in the 1993
definition because design work suggested that a definition based on only
blacks and Hispanics tended to depress the number of Asians and Pacific
Islanders encountered.  Adding "Asian/Pacific Islander" to the definition,
increased the numbers of blacks and Hispanics without hurting the number of
Asians.  It was not possible to use this same approach in the NHES:95 or
NHES:96 because the sample was purchased from a provider that did not
include information about Asians/Pacific Islanders on the sample frame.

C.4.  Sampling with Intent to Assess Change Over Time

The NHES program was conceived of as a program which would provide
trend information on important educational indicators.  Thus, each component
has been designed with the intent of assessing change over time.  Estimates
by race and ethnicity are of great interest especially for monitoring
educational trends over time.

C.5.  Use of Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) Techniques

The NHES has several features that require the use of a
computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) methodology.  First, the
topics covered by the NHES are complex and difficult skip patterns often
arise. Consequently, the types of questionnaires that are developed to
collect information on such detailed topics as child care or preschool
arrangements for young children would be difficult to administer by
telephone without the aid of a CATI system. Second, as noted earlier, the
NHES will usually cover more than one topic and require sampling from more
than one population. Here again, it seems unrealistic to implement such a
design without the assistance of an effective and efficient CATI system.
Third, one of the features of the NHES that is important to NCES is the
timely dissemination of the data gathered by this system. The use of a CATI
system shortens the amount of time devoted to interview followup, data
processing and editing, and also hastens release of public-use data files
and statistical reports.

C.6.  CATI Interviews in Spanish

Because NHES oversamples Hispanics, a number of households that are
contacted through regular CATI methods require a Spanish-language version in
order to complete the interview. In order to follow the complex skip
patterns, a Spanish-language version of the CATI instrument must be
available for interviewers who can conduct interviews in Spanish.

C.7.  Fast Turnaround

Historically, NCES has been able to release an adjudicated
"Statistics in Brief" report on each data set prior to the end of September
of the data collection year.  Thus, data cleaning, imputation, weighting,
analysis, report writing, and report adjudication have been accomplished
within 5 months of the completion of each data collection.

C.8.  Commitment to Data Quality

Since its inception, the NHES program has dedicated resources to
both assessing and improving the quality of the data.  In the sections that
follow are descriptions of data quality work that has taken place.

C.8a.  Cognitive Laboratory Work

Cognitive laboratory work has been used extensively in the NHES
program.  Focus groups have been used at even the earliest stages of
development to explore general perceptions concerning the topics.  As
questionnaires have begun to take shape, focus groups and one-on-one
think-aloud or debriefing interviews have been used to help refine items as
well as the general flow of the questionnaires.  Multiple rounds of
cognitive lab work have allowed for iterative testing of the instruments.
(See Use of Cognitive Laboratories and Recorded Interviews in the National
Household Education Survey, NHES Technical Report, as listed in Appendix B). 

C.8b.  Field Tests

Field tests have been used to improve the quality of the data in all
NHES collections.  In the 1989 field test, the NHES:91 and the NHES:93, due
to limited planning time, field tests were done in the fall preceding the
collection. The field tests primarily served to ensure that the CATI program
was operating according to specifications. In both NHES:95 and NHES:96,
extensive field testing of the topical components was done in the spring
prior to the collection year.  Both times, three rounds of field tests were
performed, though the sample size devoted to each round varied. In the
NHES:96, the first phase was small, and the purpose was to test the overall
flow of the questions, and to determine if there were any major problems
with general wording. The second phase was larger and more attention was
paid to individual items, including the appropriateness of response
categories. The third phase was smaller and was done to ensure that changes
made as a result of the earlier phases were properly programmed.
Methodological tests, such as efforts to identify means for increasing
response rates, have been incorporated into field testing as deemed
necessary.  The field tests for NHES:2001 and NHES:2003 will be conducted in
the spring, and will be similar in size to those conducted in previous NHES. 

C.8c.  Maximizing Response Rates

High response rates are critical to the NHES, and all surveys,
because the potential for nonresponse bias increases as the response rate
decreases. The most appropriate way to avoid serious nonresponse bias is to
achieve high response rates. Response rates in the NHES are the product of
the completion rate for the final stage of the survey and the completion
rates for all earlier stages.  From the NHES:91 through the NHES:96, the
response rates have ranged from approximately 70 to 82 percent.  The
Screener completion rates in 1991 and 1993 were about 10 percentage points
higher than the Screener completion rates in 1995 and 1996. In each survey
year, most nonresponse to the Screener was accounted for by refusals, which
comprised 68 to 84 percent of nonresponse. A screening experiment conducted
in the field test for the NHES:96 revealed that a major reason for lower
Screener response rates was the screening approach.  The screen-out approach
(an early eligibility item which allows many noneligible households to "opt
out") results in Screener completion rates about 10 percentage points higher
than either no screen-out or full household enumeration approaches. (See An
Experiment in Random-Digit-Dial Screening, NHES Technical Report, as listed
in Appendix B). 

Other approaches to maximize response rates that have been fielded
by NHES include: continuing to recycle telephone numbers known to be
residential until a refusal is confirmed, or a completed interview or other
outcome is confirmed; leaving messages on answering machines; sending a
letter and brochure explaining the survey to potential nonrespondents;
sending a letter to initial refusal cases eliciting their cooperation in a
possible interview; and sending out a letter in advance of the data
collection (done only in NHES:96). It should also be noted that the
percentage of telephone numbers yielding residences is lower for the
list-assisted method than the modified Waksberg-Mitofsky method (50-52
percent of numbers dialed are considered to be residential in the
list-assisted sampling method versus 60-62 percent for Waksberg-Mitofsky).
Thus, for NHES:95 and NHES:96, more telephone numbers had to be dialed in
order to establish a sufficient number of potential respondents in sample
than for the Waksberg-Mitofsky method, which clusters the banks of telephone
numbers. Achieving high levels of cooperation from the telephone numbers
sampled can maximize the efficiency of the sample and reduce the amount of
interviewer time. Strategies to maximize response rates are an essential
part of future NHES collections.  (See An Overview of Response Rates in the
National Household Education Survey:  1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996, NCES
Technical Report, as listed in Appendix B).

C.8d.  Reinterviews

Each NHES has included a reinterview survey in which a random sample
of respondents have been called and re-asked a subsample of the items on the
original interview to assess item reliability.  The purposes of the
reinterview have been to identify survey items that are not reliable and to
quantify the magnitude of the response variance for items collected from the
same respondent at two different times.  The NHES:93 included reinterviews
on both components; the NHES:91 and NHES:95 have included reinterviews with
the early childhood and adult education components, respectively. (See The
1995 National Household Survey: Reinterview Results for the Adult Education
Component, NHES Working Paper, as listed in Appendix B). The NHES:96
reinterview included reinterviews on both parent and family involvement in
the education of their children ages 3 through 5th grade, and civic
involvement of parents and youth. Adults with no children in the specified
age/grade range were not reinterviewed, under the assumption that
reliability of items on civic involvement for adults would not be
significantly different than for parents. 

C.9. Technical Review Panels

Studies of this scope, complexity, and importance require input from
a large number of individuals and organizations in order to address, in a
technically competent and meaningful way, the data needs of policymakers and
of those performing policy studies and educational research. Thus, the
contractor for the program has worked with a number of Technical Review
Panels (TRPs). Historically, a TRP has been formed for each topical
component being covered by the NHES.

TRPs have played an active role through reviewing and commenting on
overall research priorities, identifying policy and research questions,
providing input about questionnaire content, proposing analytical models and
methods, reviewing work plans and their implementation, and reviewing and
suggesting modifications to draft reports.


C.10.  Adherence to NCES Standards

NCES has developed and implemented a set of standards that set
guidelines to insure the quality of NCES' work.  These standards are to be
followed by NCES staff and their contractors in performing the day-to-day
work of the NCES.  A copy of the NCES publication NCES Statistical Standards
(U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics, June, 1992 (NCES
92-021)) can be obtained by calling (877) 4ED-PUBS.  A list of the relevant
standards covered in this publication is provided below.

	- Standard for Planning of Statistical Surveys
	- Standard for the Design of a Survey
	- Standard for Testing Survey Systems
	- Standard for Managing Survey Operations
	- Standard for Achieving Acceptable Response Rates
	- Standard for Imputation of Item Nonresponse
	- Standard for Computation of Response Rates
	- Standard for Codes, Abbreviations and Acronyms
	- Standard for Variance Estimation
	- Standard for Analysis and Statistical Comparisons
	- Standard for Maintaining Confidentiality
	- Standard for Tabular and Graphical Presentations
	- Standard for Dissemination of Survey Data and Reports
	- Standard for Timely Processing and Release of Data and Data Tapes
	- Standard for Maintaining Data Series
	- Standard for Machine Readable Products
	- Standard for Evaluation of Survey
	- Standard for Documenting a Survey System
	- Standard for Survey Documentation in Center Reports

The contractor should be aware that NCES is reviewing its standards and
policies.  Should any standard change prior to or after contract award, the
contractor shall be informed.


D.    GENERAL PLANS FOR THE NHES:2001

NHES:2001 is proposed as a data collection with three components:
Adult Education, Early Childhood Program Participation, and After School
Program Participation and Activities. Although Adult Education and Early
Childhood Education have been fielded before, it is possible that there
could be substantial modification of the questionnaires.  For example, the
adult education component is exploring the development of items in two
areas:  (1) barriers to participation, and (2) nontraditional providers and
media for the provision of adult education.  Furthermore, the NHES has
collected a limited amount of information on After School Program
Participation and Activities in previous collections, but substantial
modification will be required on this component. 

E.  GENERAL PLANS FOR THE NHES:2003

The NHES:2003 will also consist of three components:  Adult Education-Work
Related, School Readiness and Parent Involvement in Education.  However,
input from various sources will be sought prior to confirming this set of
topics.  The Adult-Education-Work Related component may seek to identify the
changing provisions of adult education courses.  Businesses, professional
associations, and governments have provided an increasing share of courses
to adults at the expense of the more traditional two-year institutions.  If
there is a shift from the academic to other types of providers, issues of
equity in access to life long learning may arise.  As with the NHES:2001,
the School Readiness component and the Parent and Family Involvement in
Education component were previously fielded by the NHES; however, redesign
of these components may be necessary.




II.  SCOPE OF WORK


A number of activities are required to successfully design and
implement the NHES:2001 and NHES:2003 data collections.  These activities
are described below as a series of tasks and subtasks and all are applicable
for both the NHES:2001 and NHES:2003.  

Specific dates for deliverables are provided in Exhibit 1 (Page 37).  Except
as noted, the contractor shall allow two weeks for the NCES COTR review of a
draft deliverable.  One week shall be allowed for the contractor to respond
to any requests for revisions.

A.  GENERAL TASKS TO BE PERFORMED

Task 1.  General Project Planning and Management

Under this task, the contractor shall perform its general project management
functions.  A routine aspect of this management shall be the development and
submission of regular monthly project reports. The monthly progress reports
are described in more detail in Section B.

1.1  Contractor Review of NHES Background Materials.  Within 5 to 10
days following award, the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative
(COTR) will provide project materials from the earlier studies (i.e., 1989
field test, NHES:91, NHES:93, NHES:95, NHES:96, and NHES:99),  including the
NHES technical reports and data files.  To take advantage of the experience
gained during the prior NHES surveys and to insure that the new studies will
be comparable in important ways with previous NHES surveys, the contractor
shall review these reports, and data files.

1.2  Other Meetings with NCES.  Key contractor staff shall be
prepared to travel to NCES' offices in Washington, DC, for meetings
throughout the contract period.  It is anticipated that about 3 meetings per
year (other than the initial meetings described in Task 1.7 and any TRP
meetings described in Task 2) shall be needed over the course of the
contract.  Typically, two of the meetings per year are one-day meetings and
one would be a two-day meeting.  The designation of attendees to each
meeting shall be made only after the meeting goals and agenda have been
established.  An average of three of the contractor's staff members is
typically in attendance at each meeting.  

The contractor shall participate in the development of the goals and
agenda for each meeting and shall be responsible for distributing meeting
materials, if any, to about 12 meeting attendees.  Materials to be
distributed shall be approved, in advance, by the COTR.  

1.3  Briefing Materials and Briefings.  From time to time throughout
the course of the project, the NCES COTR will provide interested individuals
and agencies with information about the nature, findings, and progress of
the NHES.  The contractor shall support these activities by developing up to
four sets of briefing materials to be used by the COTR for the survey.  Each
set of briefing materials shall be no more than 10 typewritten pages of text
(double-spaced) with accompanying graphs and/or tables suitable for display
(such as transparencies or slides).  Within two weeks of a request, a set of
briefing materials shall be submitted to the COTR for review and comment. 
The contractor shall make necessary revisions to the materials based on this
review and resubmit the materials within one week of receipt of comments. 

The contractor shall also be prepared to give up to ten briefings
and/or demonstrations about the NHES program.  The COTR will give as much
notice as possible for these briefings and/or demonstrations.  Examples of
the kinds of meetings at which the contractor might be asked to demonstrate
NHES data are the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association and NCES' Summer Data Conference. All materials prepared for
these briefings shall also be approved, prior to use, by the COTR. The
contractor shall submit briefing materials for approval no less than 10
working days before the materials are to be presented. The contractor shall
make revisions as appropriate and provide final copies to the COTR within 1
week of receipt of comments.

1.4  Project Leaflet.  Over the course of the contract, the
contractor, in consultation with the COTR, shall prepare three leaflets
describing the NHES.  The COTR will request a leaflet, and the contractor
shall deliver a first draft of the leaflet to the COTR within three weeks of
the request.  The COTR will review the leaflet and provide comments and
suggestions within two weeks. The contractor shall revise the materials
based on suggestions from the COTR and submit camera-ready, color-separated
copy of the materials no later than two weeks following receipt of the
COTR's comments.  An electronic version of the leaflet's text and graphics
should be delivered with the camera-ready copy; the electronic version
should be in a Web-compatible format in accordance with existing NCES
guidelines.   

1.5  Project Bibliography.  Throughout the course of the contract,
the contractor shall maintain a bibliography of reports and articles which
cite any of the NHES surveys.  These bibliographies shall be delivered to
the COTR each November (See Exhibits 1 and 2).  The COTR will review the
bibliography and provide comments within two weeks of receipt.  The
contractor shall revise the bibliography and submit one camera-ready and ten
stapled copies within two weeks of receipt of the COTR's comments.  This
bibliography shall be updated on an annual basis thereafter to include
citations of reports or articles which cite previous NHES surveys or the
current NHES surveys (once available). 

1.6 Development of Data Security Plan.  In order to ensure the
anonymity of individual respondents, the contractor must comply with Section
408 of the National Education Statistics Act of 1994, P.L. 103-382 (20
U.S.C. 9007).  The Act authorizes fines or imprisonment for disclosure of
individually identifiable information for any purpose other than statistical
purposes.   	

Under no circumstances may the contractor release personally identifiable
information.  Information which identifies persons must be maintained in
files which are physically separate from other research data and which are
accessible only to sworn agency and contractor personnel.

Individual identifiers used during the course of the project shall be
associated with data only for purposes of data gathering, matching new data
with old, establishing sample composition, authenticating data collections,
editing data based on callbacks, or obtaining missing information.

The contractor shall enforce strict procedures for ensuring confidentiality.
 These procedures shall apply to all phases of the project and should
include but not be limited to:

1) data collection in the field;

2) coding and editing phases of data prior to machine processing; and,

3) safeguarding response documents, including CATI records.

Any employee needing access to confidential information shall first
swear to an Affidavit of Nondisclosure.  A copy of the Affidavit is
available upon request from ED's Grants and Contracts Service.  The
contractor shall execute these Affidavits of Nondisclosure and the originals
shall be maintained by the contractor at their office.  The contractor shall
be able to produce these Affidavits within a few hours notice from the COTR.
The contractor shall indicate the position in the organization of the
person signing the Affidavit of Nondisclosure, and the person's functional
relationship to this project in a memorandum provided to the COTR.  As new
persons are assigned to this project, an Affidavit of Nondisclosure shall be
executed for them on the first working day of assignment to the project. 
Throughout the life of the contract, the memorandum of Affidavits of
Nondisclosure for new project staff, as well as interviewers and other
short-term personnel shall be submitted on a schedule designated by the COTR
or at a minimum of three times a year. 

All individuals asked to respond to the survey shall be informed of
the following: NCES' enabling legislation; the purposes for which the
information is needed; uses that may be made of the data; and the methods of
reporting the data so that an individual's responses are not revealed.

The contractor shall maintain security on the complete set (and
deliverable backups) of all master survey files and documentation.  The
contractor shall present a detailed security plan that expands upon what was
presented in the proposal to the NCES COTR for approval.

Tasks 1.1 through 1.6 shall be conducted once during the contract, the
remaining tasks will be completed for both NHES:2001 and NHES:2003.  See
Exhibit 1 (p.37) for schedule of deliverable dates.  		

1.7. Initial Meeting with NCES.  The contractor shall meet
with NCES staff , and someone from the Department of Education's Grants and
Contracts, within ten days of contract award to review the study's tasks and
to discuss issues related to the conduct of the work.  This conference shall
be considered part of the background review and as input for the project
management plan.

1.8.  Project Management Plan.  The contractor shall prepare and
submit an updated project management plan to the COTR.  The COTR will
provide comments on the plan within two weeks of receipt.  The contractor
shall incorporate the changes necessary to respond to the concerns raised by
the COTR and submit a revised plan within one week of receipt of the COTR's
review comments.  Final approval of the revised plan will be provided within
two weeks of receipt of the final plan.  

The plan shall describe and justify any revisions to the original
plan specified in the contract.  These might include changes in data
collection approach, data processing, plans for analysis and reporting, as
well as changes in the proposed project organization, staffing plan, and
schedule.

The plan shall fully describe the rationale for any proposed
changes.  The plan shall also detail the management techniques that will be
employed to insure timely, efficient, and cost-effective data collection,
processing, analysis and reporting.

Task 2. Technical Review Panel

A Technical Review Panel (TRP) shall be established for each
component of the NHES.  The TRP for each component shall consist of no fewer
than six persons who the contractor believes will have expertise to bring to
the project, as the topics cross the spectrum of education areas (such as
early childhood program participation to work-related adult education). 
Candidates for the NHES TRPs should be drawn from data users to the extent
possible.  The role of each TRP shall be to review the technical and
substantive issues associated with the NHES. 	 	

2.1. 	Develop TRP Plan.  The contractor shall submit a plan to the COTR
for the NHES TRPs. This plan shall contain a list of nominees of individuals
with the needed expertise for possible membership on the TRP, shall detail a
schedule of meetings, and outline the role of the TRP. The COTR must approve
the nominations or suggest alternate nominees. The contractor shall
recommend a tentative schedule of panel meetings in keeping with the overall
plans presented in its proposal.  


2.2.	Solicit Participation in TRP. Once the COTR has approved an
individual for membership, which will take no more than four weeks, the
contractor shall take no more than two weeks to contact the individual to
solicit participation.


2.3. 	Plan and Arrange TRP Meetings.  All materials and
correspondence required for the TRP's consideration and review must be
provided to the COTR for review. After the COTR review and approval, those
materials should be sent out to TRP members for review and comment. The
contractor shall arrange for TRP meetings and pay all associated expenses.
It is anticipated that each TRP shall convene for as many as three one-day
meetings. Panelists will need one day, prior to each meeting, to review
materials and to otherwise prepare for the meeting.  All meetings shall be
held in Washington, DC at the offices of the NCES.  Non-government panelists
should be paid an honorarium plus per diem and related expenses. The same
rates would apply for other work panel members might perform. 


2.4. 	Provide Meeting Summaries.  The contractor shall tape record
meetings and submit a written summary to the COTR within two weeks of each
meeting.  The meeting summary shall not be a verbatim transcript of the
meeting.  Instead, it shall summarize the discussions and activities that
took place during the meeting, highlighting major issues that were raised
and decisions made.


2.5. 	Administer Other TRP Activities.  The contractor shall
arrange and pay for specific work products not tied to a meeting. For
example, the TRP might be asked to comment on a technical report. Again,
non-government panelists should be paid an honorarium. The contractor shall
supply the COTR with copies of all correspondence and other materials
exchanged with panelists.

Task 3. Develop Survey Content

Even though the NHES may be drawn from items that have been fielded
previously, additional conceptual work (both substantive and methodological)
is required to design the sample, data collection procedures, instruments,
and analyses. The contractor shall implement an approach to the design of
the NHES that follows the steps outlined in the following subtasks.

3.1.  Hold Meetings to Identify Key Research and Policy Issues.  The
contractor shall consult with the COTR, and through the COTR with the
various offices in the U.S. Department of Education, other Federal agencies
(including OMB), education policy groups (e.g., heads of state policy
analysis centers, and administrators from state departments of education),
and members of the NHES TRPs for input on issues germane to the approved
topics.  A series of meetings with various education policy offices and
groups shall be arranged by the COTR and the contractor to obtain their
recommendations.  At these meetings, the contractor shall outline NCES'
plans for the NHES and request the input of the policy offices and groups in
identifying important research and policy issues in need of comprehensive
national data that are appropriately gathered by the NHES.  

Following completion of work on this task, the contractor shall
prepare and submit an issues report.  At a minimum, this report shall
contain a written summary of each meeting.  It shall also contain a summary
of the meetings as a whole.  This report should strive to present a balanced
view of the research issues presented by all of the various groups.  In
particular, the summary should highlight recommendations that emerge from
more than one source or from consensus.  

3.2.  Literature Review.  For each topical component of the NHES,
the contractor shall prepare a literature review of all of the reports,
articles and extant surveys available in the appropriate content area.  The
contractor shall submit a plan for the conduct of each of the literature
reviews.  The COTR will review each of the plans and provide comments within
two weeks of receipt.  The contractor shall provide the literature reviews
to the COTR.  The COTR will review each literature review and provide
comments within two weeks.  The contractor shall deliver the final
literature reviews two weeks after data collection, at which time, they
shall contain the most current information in each field.  

3.3  Prioritize Research and Policy Questions to be Addressed  The
contractor shall prepare lists of the research questions to be addressed by
each component of each NHES.  On each list, the questions shall appear in
their order of priority for the collection.  The contractor shall submit the
first draft of the prioritized research question list with the summary of
meetings report mentioned above.  Approved lists of research questions shall
be provided to the appropriate TRP for review and comment.  All comments
from the TRP members shall be summarized by the contractor and presented to
the NCES COTR.   	The lists will undergo constant revision.  As the
instruments are developed, the lists shall also indicate the questionnaire
items which will be used to address each research question.  Each submission
of a questionnaire shall be accompanied by a revised research question list.
 In that way, as items are revised or deleted or as design changes are made,
their impact on the research and policy questions to be addressed will be
known.  The contractor should plan on up to 6 revisions to the research
questions lists.

3.4.  Review Designs and Instruments of Other Surveys.  The
contractor shall review the designs and instrumentation of key studies and
data collection programs that are related to the topical components of the
NHES.  The primary objective of this review is to collect information that
will help to place the NHES into perspective with respect to past NHES
surveys and other extant studies. The contractor shall prepare a summary of
these studies emphasizing the areas of comparability and differences between
these studies and the NHES.  The summary shall show how the NHES complements
other studies and extend the information base on the topics being addressed. 

An outline of the summary shall be submitted to the COTR for review
and approval prior to the actual summary being prepared.  After approval of
the outline, the contractor shall prepare the summary and submit a draft for
the COTR review and comment.  

At a minimum, the summary shall contain detailed information on the
purpose of each survey, its sample design, the inference population, the
methods used to collect data pertaining to the education issues being
addressed, the characteristics for which information is being sought, and
the types of estimation/analyses the data collection supports.  Following
the COTR's review of the draft, the contractor shall make any revisions
necessitated by the COTR's comments and submit a final summary of the extant
studies/data for the COTR's review and approval.

The summary of extant studies/data will provide the necessary
background information needed to develop a plan for conducting a comparative
analysis of estimates derived from the NHES.  As a part of the analysis and
reporting requirements associated with each NHES, the contractor shall
compare estimates from the NHES with similar estimates derived from other
studies (see Task 14).

3.5.  Prepare Content Outline.  The contractor shall prepare and
submit a content outline for each survey component.  The content outline
shall list the recommended topics for inclusion along with a brief rationale
for each.  The topics for inclusion in the survey shall be organized by the
research and policy issues they address.

Following the COTR's review of the drafts, revised outlines which
incorporate suggestions made by the COTR shall be submitted.  Approved
content outlines shall be provided to the appropriate Technical Review Panel
for review and comment.  All comments from the TRP members shall be
summarized by the contractor and presented to the NCES COTR.

Task 4.  Develop Survey Instruments and Procedures

4.1.  Develop Survey Instrument.  The survey "instrument" for RDD
telephone surveys is the combination of questionnaire items comprising the
screener interview and the content interviews.  The NHES will be conducted
through the use of CATI; therefore, the design of the survey instrument
shall take this into consideration (See task 8).  The screener interview
provides the information about whether the telephone number serves a
household (eligible telephone number) and whether any household members are
eligible for sampling and interview (eligible HH members). The NHES:95 Basic
Screener served that purpose. An alternative to the Basic Screener was
tested in NHES:95 and used in full-scale operation for NHES:96. The Expanded
Screener added two features to the Basic Screener. First, it provided for
the collection of more detailed demographic information about every
household member after full enumeration. Secondly, it added a third topical
component about the household by a household respondent.  Current plans for
the NHES include a Basic Screener; however, NCES may specify the use of an
Expanded Screener.

Draft copies of the survey instrument shall be submitted to the COTR
for review and comment.  The COTR will provide comments on the draft
instruments within two weeks.  Within one week of receipt of the COTR's
review comments, the contractor shall revise the instruments incorporating
the comments and suggestions of the COTR, and submit a second draft of the
instruments.

Following the cognitive laboratory research, discussed below, the
contractor shall prepare a third draft of the instruments.  Following the
COTR's review and approval of this draft (within two weeks of its
submittal), the contractor shall make revisions necessitated by the COTR's
review.

4.2.  Develop Data Collection Procedures.  Data collection
procedures are the decision rules about how to handle various types of
situations encountered in the field, such as, but not limited to, how many
Ring No Answers to allow before finalizing the case as a no contact, whether
to use Advance Letters as an aid to reducing possible nonresponse, what type
of message to leave on answering machines, the use of an "800" number for
callbacks, and so forth. These procedures shall be documented by the
contractor.  

An outline of data collection procedures together with a proposal
that contains a written description of the activities and decision rules for
nonresponse and noncontact cases shall be submitted to the COTR.  The COTR
will comment on the data collection procedures.  

Upon completion of the Cognitive Laboratory testing and subsequent
revisions to the survey instrument, a revised and more detailed version of
the data collection procedures shall be submitted to the COTR.  The COTR
will provide comments on the revised version.  A final version,
incorporating the use of CATI programming procedures, shall be delivered to
the COTR. Any last-minute changes and corrections due to CATI programming
changes should be documented and the field version made available to the
COTR at the start of data collection.  

4.3.  Conduct Cognitive Laboratory Research. Because most of the
data items in the NHES will be collected periodically, it is important to
insure that the items developed for the NHES are both valid and sensitive
measures of an individual's educational experiences.  In support of these
objectives, the contractor shall design and implement cognitive laboratory
research on the NHES instruments. The cognitive laboratory research shall be
directed toward an understanding of the extent to which the questionnaire
items are understood by respondents and how their answers might be
interpreted.  This research shall seek to identify any areas of ambiguity
and confusion.

Prior to conducting any cognitive laboratory research, the
contractor shall develop and submit a plan for the conduct of such research.
 The plan shall describe the contractor's general approach to this work and
identify the specific methods and procedures that shall be used. 
Justification shall be provided for the selection of certain methods over
others relative to the objectives of the research.  The plan shall also
describe how the outcomes of the cognitive laboratory research will be used
to improve the overall quality of the NHES instruments and procedures.  The
contractor shall allow two weeks for the COTR to review the plan. 
Implementation of the plan shall be contingent upon the COTR's approval.

A draft of the Cognitive Research Report shall be due to the COTR. 
The contractor shall allow two weeks for the COTR to review the draft.  The
report shall be revised in response to the COTR's comments and the final
report submitted.

Task 5.  Sample Design

During the design and conduct of the NHES, it is important that
considerable attention be paid to the reduction of non-sampling errors as
well as to the reduction of errors that are introduced through the sample
selection process.  The contractor shall consider any experiment or special
studies that would enhance our knowledge of the effects of different NHES
design features, and submit a plan for the conduct of such research, if
necessary.  The plan shall describe the contractor's general approach to
this work and identify the specific methods and procedures that shall be
used.  Justification shall be provided for the selection of certain methods
over others relative to the objectives of the research.  The plan shall also
describe how the outcomes of the cognitive laboratory research will be used
to improve the overall quality of the NHES instruments and procedures.  The
contractor shall allow two weeks for the COTR to review the plan. 
Implementation of the plan shall be contingent upon the COTR's approval.

The contractor shall design an appropriate sampling strategy that
will result in a sample sufficiently large sample to support the types of
analyses to which the data will be subjected.  In designing the sample, the
contractor shall weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different
sampling approaches.  The contractor shall carefully consider the total
number of households that will need to be screened in order to obtain the
target sample sizes.  The impact of the screening rates on both the
precision of the sample estimates and on the costs of the survey shall be
evaluated.

The contractor shall take the following features of the NHES into
account when designing the sample:

 o	In developing the sample design,  the contractor shall give
special attention to increasing the minority (black and Hispanic)
representation in the sample and to increasing the precision of estimates
for different race/ethnic groups.  Increasing the number of minority
households in the sample may be accomplished in several ways.  The simplest
method, but not necessarily the most efficient method, is to increase the
overall sample size (i.e., the number of households screened).  Other
methods involve the use of information on neighborhood characteristics
associated with different telephone exchanges to identify and oversample
high minority exchanges and the use of more screening items at the household
level.  

   o	The NHES shall be designed in such a way as to increase the
power of detecting changes across time in the key estimates.  For estimates
of percentages in the 30-60 range, the ability to detect at least a 10-15
percent relative change in key estimates (i.e., relative change as a percent
of the estimate p) is desirable. 

	    o	The contractor shall consider the merits of including in the
sample all household members who meet the eligibility criteria for a topical
component (e.g., 3- to 8-year-old children) versus sampling within the
household among those members who meet the criteria.

NCES may decide to develop state-level estimates for key estimates
from each of the different topical components for either the NHES:2001 or
the NHES:2003.  In the event that state-level estimates are required, the
contractor shall work closely with the COTR to develop this capability.

The contractor shall prepare a sample design plan for the NHES
surveys and submit them to the COTR for review and approval prior to
implementation.  A draft of the plans shall be submitted to the COTR. 
Following the COTR review, the contractor shall make any necessary revisions
to the plans and submit the revised plans to the COTR for review.  The
revised plans shall be submitted within one week of receipt of the COTR's
comments on the draft plans. The revised plans are expected to be the final
sample design.

Task 6.  Survey Design Report

The contractor shall prepare a Survey Design Report.  This report
shall be in large part a compilation of the materials prepared under Tasks 4
and 5.  At a minimum, it shall contain: 1) an introduction to the survey
with a comprehensive statement of its intended purpose; 2) a description of
the sampling design of the survey; 3) a description of the survey
procedures; 4) copies of the NHES instruments along with appropriate
justifications and definitions for key variables; and 5) a plan for
analyzing the data from the survey.  The Survey Design Report shall also
contain detailed projected costs for Tasks 8 through 14 based on the same
assumptions used in the design.

The contractor shall submit an outline of the Survey Design Report
to the COTR for approval.  Once the outline of the report is approved by the
COTR, the contractor shall submit a draft of the Survey Design Report to the
COTR.  Within two weeks of receipt of the draft report, the COTR will
provide the contractor with comments on the draft document.  The contractor
shall revise the Survey Design Report incorporating the COTR's comments and
suggestions.  The revised Draft Survey Design Report shall be submitted to
the COTR within one week of receipt of the COTR's review comments on the
draft report.  The contractor shall provide the NHES COTR and members of the
NHES TRP with copies of the report for their review and comment.  The
contractor shall request that the members of the TRP provide written
comments and be prepared to discuss the NHES design at a TRP meeting.

With the COTR's approval, the contractor shall modify the Survey
Design Report (and the NHES survey design) based on the suggestions of the
TRP members.  The COTR assumes that most of the contents of the Survey
Design Report shall be used to prepare the IMT/OMB Forms Clearance Package.
The Survey Design Report will continue to be updated throughout the data
collection process, to incorporate the field test results and
implementation. 

Task 7.  IMT/OMB Clearance of  the NHES Instruments

The contractor shall prepare a forms clearance package for obtaining
IMT (Information Management Team of the Department of Education) and OMB
approval of the NHES. The contractor shall follow specifications as provided
in Standard Form 83-I.  The forms clearance package shall include:  a
supporting statement that describes the reason for the study, detailed
justification of all items to be included in the survey, sample design
specifications, data collection procedures, analysis plan, estimated
response burden, description of the NHES program, other information required
by IMT and OMB, and survey materials to be used in the study--survey
questionnaires, and other materials to be used with the respondents.

Following the COTR's review of the draft package, the contractor
shall revise the package incorporating the COTR's comments and suggestions
and submit a revised package.  This version of the package will be
distributed more widely within the Department of Education for further
review.  The contractor shall expect additional comments and suggestions
within four weeks.  Following this review, the contractor shall have one
week to submit a revised package incorporating the COTR's comments and
suggestions.  Following approval of the revised package, the contractor
shall provide the COTR with 10 copies of the IMT/OMB Clearance Package. 
Submitting the package far in advance of the scheduled start of data
collection will help insure that OMB approval is obtained prior to the
conduct of the field tests (see Task 9).  The COTR will submit the package
to IMT/OMB.  Following submission of the package, IMT/OMB has up to 4 months
to respond with questions or revisions before granting clearance; the
contractor is expected to provide any technical assistance to the COTR as
necessary to answer such inquiries.  

Task 8.  Develop CATI System

All interviews conducted as a part of the NHES shall use a CATI
methodology. The CATI system developed for the NHES shall perform thenecessary functions associated with:

1.  sampling the appropriate households and individuals for
interviews;

2.  scheduling interviews -- the CATI shall provide the telephone
numbers online to interviewers to attempt initial contacts, maintain a 
list and schedule of callback appointments, and
establish a schedule for attempting to contact numbers when initial
attempts at contact fail;

3.  guiding the interviewer through the questionnaire based on the
data requirements for given classes of respondents  -- the
programming of skip patterns will reduce the number of
interviewer errors and improve the overall quality of the survey data;

4.  monitoring and reporting the progress of the data collection on
a daily and weekly basis;

5.  coding and editing of the interview data -- most of the coding
of the interview data shall be accomplished by the CATI system during
the conduct of the interview. However, there may be
exceptions to this. Editing of the answers provided by respondents          
shall be performed during the interview and at a minimum shall
include both range and consistency checks.

To the greatest extent possible, the contractor shall design the
CATI system in such a way as to minimize disruptions to the system when
requests for changes are made. The contractor shall program the approved
survey instrument into a CATI system in both English language and Spanish
language versions.

8.1.  Specification of Range and Logic Checks.  The contractor shall
prepare specifications for every questionnaire item response that detail the
allowable range of response and of internal consistency checks between sets
of related items.  For example, if the age of the respondent is collected in
the demographic items, then other items relating to the person's age should
be consistent with the reported age. The contractor shall develop response
categories that distinguish between "Not Applicable" responses (i.e., valid
missing data due to skip patterns) and item nonresponse.     

The contractor shall develop procedures for insuring the overall
quality of the data collected in the NHES.  Most of the data editing
associated with the conduct of the NHES shall take place during the
interview session via edits contained in the CATI system.  However, even
with elaborate edit specifications for the survey instruments, it is assumed
that errors in the data still may occur.  As a consequence, the contractor
shall implement manual editing procedures.  Procedures shall be developed
and in place for resolving unanticipated problems. 

At a minimum, editing of the survey data during the conduct of the
interview shall include range checks (both hard and soft) and consistency
checks.  Inappropriate characters (such as words in a numeric field) should
be prevented from being entered by the interviewer. Procedures shall be
established that permit interviewers to respond appropriately to survey
participants who provide out-of-range or inconsistent information.  In
developing these procedures, the contractor shall weigh the needs for
accurate information and limited interviewer interference against the need
for completing the interview as efficiently as possible. 	For each
NHES instrument, the contractor shall prepare CATI edit specifications. 
(Post-CATI edit specifications are covered in Task 12-1, below.)  These
specifications shall be submitted to the COTR for review and comment.  The
COTR will provide comments within two weeks, and CATI edit specifications
revised in response to the COTR's comments shall be submitted. 

Revised CATI specifications are expected to be the final version; the draft
submitted should be considered as a final version with only minor
modifications to be incorporated.

Open-ended items (such as an occupation or education provider name)
will have to be coded and edited either online (with screens that provide
precoded response categories) or handled in post-interview manual edits (See
Appendix C).  The online capability is most desirable but would need to work
seamlessly with the rest of the CATI software.  The COTR has some experience
with online coding programs used for ICOC and IPEDS.  The contractor should
propose how to handle such open-ended items.

8.2.  Programming of Survey Instruments.  Programming the survey
instruments into the CATI system is one of the key activities of the
project.  For the survey instrument to capture the data reported by
respondents accurately, the CATI system shall be able to appropriately
handle all contingencies associated with the conduct of the interview.  Each
response shall lead to the next appropriate point in the survey and each
response provided by the participants shall be accounted for.  

Because of the complexity of the CATI programming of a NHES
instrument, the contractor shall develop the procedures and materials
necessary to insure that all program specifications are correct and
complete.  The contractor shall propose appropriate procedures for
verification of specifications, such as having multiple reviewers of varying
levels of expertise test out the screens.

8.3.  Testing of the CATI System.  Prior to the conduct of the field
test (see Task 9), the contractor shall test all features of the CATI
system, including those features of the system associated with sampling,
scheduling, interview management (e.g., skip patterns), data entry and
editing, and case control.  Testing of the system shall involve the review
of project staff at all levels of the project (e.g., project management,
staff with substantive expertise pertaining to the collection, telephone
operations staff, and programmers).  It shall also involve the use of
interview scenarios so that the system can be tested under simulated
interview conditions. Every branch of the interview skip patterns should be
tested, and corrected if necessary, prior to delivery of the testable CATI
instrument, to be sure that all contingencies have been foreseen. The COTR
shall be informed of the nature of changes to the CATI instrument due to
error resolution, and any differences between the OMB-approved questionnaire
and the CATI instrument that is programmed shall be documented and justified
with the COTR's knowledge and consent.

8.4.  Delivery of Testable CATI Instrument.  The COTR shall have a
minimum of 10 days to test out the CATI system. The contractor shall propose
how to make the CATI system testable to the COTR, whether at the
contractor's facilities or at NCES. A testable CATI is one in which the
sampling and dialing functions do not have to be demonstrated, but all
screens should be ready to test out in its entirety. It should be possible
for the COTR or other assigned project staff to go through a variety of
simulated interviews (everything except dialing and sampling), testing out
the responses to various scenarios and types of household respondents. The
COTR shall notify the contractor promptly of all questions or problems with
the CATI programming. The contractor shall remedy all problems reported
during the testing phase.  A testable CATI instrument shall be made
available to the COTR no later than 3 weeks prior to the Field Test (see
Task 9), to allow time for reprogramming as necessary.

8.5.  Spanish and English Language CATI Screens.  To allow for the
review of the Spanish-language version of the CATI instrument, the
contractor shall provide hard copies of both the English and the
Spanish-language CATI screens.

These CATI screens shall be submitted to the NCES COTR for review
and comment.  The COTR will provide comments within four weeks, and the
revised Spanish-language version CATI screens shall be submitted.

Task 9.  Field Test of Survey Instruments and Procedures

9.1. Submit Field Test Plan.  The contractor, with the COTR, shall
design a field test that tests both the implementation of full-scale
procedures, such as sampling, scheduling, and actual interviewing and CATI
survey questionnaire programming (skip patterns, online edits, etc.).  To
maximize the utility of the Field Tests, two rounds of testing are
recommended: the first on a small number of households to test out the basic
screen functioning and skip patterns, the second on a larger number of
households to test out finer detail such as whether responding categories
make sense. The number of cases for the first round should be large enough
to test out each branch of the skip patterns.

The contractor shall also use the field test to test alternative
introductions.  The goal would be to find the introduction that results in
fewer initial hang-ups while still meeting OMB requirements for the
introduction.

The field test plan shall detail the schedule and work to be
conducted for not only the field test, but also the subsequent analysis and
revisions to the survey instruments.  The contractor shall submit the field
test plan to the COTR for review. The COTR will review the field test plan
and provide comments within two weeks.  The contractor shall submit a final
plan for conduct of a field test to the COTR.

9.2.  Conduct Field Test. Once the cognitive laboratory work is
complete, and the data collection instruments have been developed and
approved (by NCES and OMB), the contractor shall conduct a field test of the
instruments and the CATI system.  All sampling and data collection
procedures scheduled for the full-scale survey (see Survey Design Report
under Task 6) shall be used to the extent feasible during the conduct of the
field test; however, if necessary, purposive sampling may be substituted in
order to guarantee a sufficient number of rare population households.  

The field test shall be used to test the entire CATI system,
including its dialing, scheduling, and interview progress reporting
functions.  It shall also be used to test the wording and flow of the
questionnaire items including appropriate skip patterns. 	Responses of
field test sample members shall be reviewed and analyzed, and results shall
be documented.  Item response rate tables shall be generated. Special
attention shall be given to skip pattern errors, consistency and other edit
checks, and the sensitivity of items.

9.3.  Submit Field Test Report with Revised CATI Instruments.  The
contractor shall prepare a short summary of the field test findings for
review by the COTR and, at the COTR's request, members of the NHES TRP.  Any
problems encountered during the conduct of the field test and the
contractor's recommendations for overcoming these problems shall be
documented and reported. Recommendations for changes to the survey
instruments shall be given in detail with justification of any additional
costing. 

9.4.  Submit Design/Instrument Changes in IMT/OMB Memo.  Based on
field test results, modifications may be called for in the data collection
procedures and instruments.  Following the COTR's approval of any revisions
to the survey instruments and procedures, the contractor shall submit these
changes to IMT/OMB through the COTR.  Notification of these changes shall be
made in the form of a memorandum from the COTR to IMT/OMB.  A draft of the
memorandum shall be prepared by the contractor and submitted to the NCES
COTR.  The contractor shall modify the memorandum based on the comments of
NCES staff and submit a final memorandum to NCES. 

9.5.  Submit Final Instruments.  The final instruments, reflecting
any IMT/OMB revisions, shall be submitted to the NCES COTR in hard copy
format for the English language version.

Task 10.  Hiring and Training CATI Interviewers

The success of the NHES is due in large part to the skills and
dedication of the CATI interviewers.  It is critical that all persons
assigned to these positions have the necessary verbal,  interpersonal and
typing skills required for successful CATI interviewing.  These skills are
developed through a combination of prior experiences working on other CATI
projects and training.

10.1.  Develop Interviewer Training Materials.  In order to ensure
that the CATI interviewers assigned to the NHES have the skill levels
necessary to perform successfully the demanding tasks associated with the
conduct of the survey, the contractor shall design and implement a CATI
interviewer training program.  At a minimum, this program shall include both
lecture and interactive sessions.  The program shall include training
related to: 1) the general conduct of interviews, 2) CATI interviewing
skills and techniques, and 3) the administration of the NHES screener and
topical component survey instruments.  

Prior to developing any training materials, the contractor shall
submit an outline of its interviewer training program to the COTR for
review.  This outline shall include: 1) a training program agenda that
identifies the format of the session (lecture, interactive, role-playing,
etc.), the topics to be covered (e.g., study background, overview of
instruments, survey topical component), the length of time the session is
scheduled to run; 2) an outline of the study materials that interviewers
will be provided; and 3) a preliminary training program schedule that
identifies when and where each group of interviewers will be trained. 
Following the COTR's review and approval of the interviewer training
program, the contractor shall develop and submit copies of all training
materials to the COTR for review.  The contractor shall make revisions as
necessary based on the COTR's review of the materials and submit 5 copies of
the final training materials to the NCES COTR.

The contractor shall monitor all data collection activities to
assure consistent high quality data throughout the collection period. 
Therefore, as a part of the training plan, the contractor shall include
awareness of interviewer responsibilities under the Privacy Act of 1974 (5
U.S.C. 552a), the Privacy Act Regulations (34 CFR Part 5b), the National
Center for Education Statistics Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-382, Section 9007),
detailing the Center's responsibility for keeping all individual information
confidential. The contractor shall also follow NCES Standards and Policies,
and design methods of review and checking which will take place during and
after training to assure that only high quality CATI personnel are retained
and utilized.  In addition to supervisory monitoring, the contractor shall
include plans that address issues of quality control such as tracking
interviewer performance, maintenance of standards, identification of poor
performance, and procedures for correcting such performance.

10.2.  Recruitment of Interviewers.  The contractor shall recruit
and hire all CATI interviewers needed to complete the data collection within
the time constraints imposed by the project schedule.  Because the NHES
requires the conduct of a large number of interviews within a relatively
short time period, the contractor will need a large number of trained staff
committed to the project.  Whenever possible, the contractor shall recruit
interviewers with prior CATI interviewing experience.

Because the NHES over samples Hispanics, the contractor shall have
staff who are qualified to conduct the interviews in Spanish.  

10.3.  Interviewer Training Sessions.  The contractor shall have
responsibility for the conduct of the training sessions.  All sessions shall
take place at the contractors' facilities or facilities arranged for by the
contractor.  The contractor shall be responsible for assuring that all
interviewers assigned to the project successfully complete the training
program as specified in the training plan.  The contractor shall have
responsibility for the production of all interviewer training materials and
shall have sufficient materials available for all staff trained during the
conduct of the project.

Because of the complex nature of the NHES, the contractor shall
develop and implement a multi-day training program which shall take place in
the week prior to the start of data collection.  (During the conduct of the
previous NHES, approximately 20 to 28 hours of project-specific training was
required of each interviewer in addition to basic training in general
interviewing techniques and the use of the CATI system.)  At a minimum, the
training sessions shall consist of lecture, interactive, and role-playing
sessions.  The last session of each interviewer training program shall
involve on-line interviewing with actual respondents under the close
supervision of the contractor's staff.  Training should take place in the
week preceding the start of data collection.

Confidentiality requirements in NCES contracts mandate that
interviewers shall complete a sworn Affidavit of Nondisclosure.  These
affidavits shall be signed in the presence of a public notary and must be
dated the first day the interviewer is on the payroll.  (This requirement
applies to all project staff having access to the data.)  

 Task 11.  Data Collection

The NHES is scheduled to be conducted in the late winter/spring of
each year (January through March) with data collection spanning a period of
no more than three months (a shorter time period is certainly more
desirable).  All interviewing associated with the NHES, unless otherwise
approved by the COTR, shall be done by telephone using a CATI methodology. 
Once a telephone number is sampled for the NHES, the contractor shall screen
the household (telephone number) for eligibility and, if determined to be
eligible under the conditions of the survey, conduct all screener and
extended interviews for which the household qualifies.

All interviewing shall be conducted at the contractor's facilities
and shall be under the supervision of the contractor's staff.  

11.1.  Data Collection Schedule.  As stated above, the data
collection period shall be a maximum of three months, beginning no earlier
than the second week of  January and ending no later than the first of 
April.  All interviews shall be completed within this period.

Interviews shall be scheduled so as to maximize the number of
completed interviews and minimize the number of non-productive interviewer
hours charged to the project.  When a telephone number is sampled for the
NHES, at least seven attempts (telephone calls) to complete the household
screening interview shall be made over a two-week period.  These attempts
shall be scheduled so that they cover different days of the week and hours
of the day.  For reporting purposes, Unable to Contact (Ring No Answers or
FAX/Data line) should be distinguishable from Contact, Noninterview (such as
only Answering Machine/Voicemail responses). At least 14 attempts to
complete all interviews associated with a household shall be made once a
household is determined to qualify for the survey.  Once again, these
attempts shall be staggered over different days of the week and time of day
(e.g., morning versus afternoon or evening hours).  

11.2.  Quality Control Procedures.  The contractor shall develop and
implement a set of quality control procedures that will assure the
collection of high quality data throughout the data collection period. 
Project supervisory staff shall closely monitor interviewer activities in
order to ensure that all data collection procedures are followed and that
all standards are adhered to.  Problems that are identified shall be
addressed immediately and consistently.  Statistics on interviewer response
rates should be maintained and checked regularly to pinpoint response rate
problems.

Examples of data quality control checks that should be performed
during the field data collection phase are:

1.  All unusual circumstances are documented and discussed with the
COTR, such as unexpected field occurrences that require modification
to the normal procedures. 	

2.  Any situation in which unusually low response rates seem to be occurring 
is investigated and the reasons are discussed with the COTR.

Because of the number of staff who will be assigned to the NHES data
collection activities (both supervisory and interviewer staff), it is
important that any decisions that are made about the conduct of the survey
be disseminated immediately and clearly to all staff involved in the
project.  Procedures shall be in place from the beginning of training until
the completion of data collection that will assure that all parties involved
with the collection of data use the same solutions to and interpretations of
problems that arise during the course of the survey.

11.3.  Progress Reports.  Throughout the data collection period, the
contractor shall provide the NCES COTR with weekly progress reports. The
contractor's CATI system shall be designed in such a way as to be able to
produce computer-generated reports that show the progress that is being made
during the interview phase of the project.  These reports shall contain
detailed information on the interim and final status of all telephone
numbers sampled for the survey.  At a minimum, they shall include
information on the number of potential households (telephone numbers)
screened, the number of eligible telephone numbers sampled, the number of
cases for which contact has been attempted and established, the number of
cases for which interviews have been completed or that have refused to
participate in the survey, the number of cases by reason for all types of
noninterview or out-of-scope (such as: language barrier, phone in residence
used for business, entire HH not eligible, phone disconnected after initial
contact, ring no answer after maximum number of calls, etc.), the number of
missed scheduled calls, the number of interviewer hours (aggregated), the
number of cases referred to refusal conversion, and the number of initial
refusals that were completed during refusal conversion.  Where appropriate
this information shall be reported separately for each type of eligible
household or respondent.  Response rates as well as completion rates for all
cases should be calculated and reported to the COTR on a weekly basis, for
all phases of the operation, from screening through final interview, with a
summary that certifies that progress is at or above target levels, or with
explanation and actions taken if sufficient progress is not being made.   
In addition to the computer-generated reports described
above, these weekly reports shall identify any problems encountered and
either describe how these problems were resolved or recommend alternative
ways of resolving these problems.  These weekly progress reports are in
addition to the monthly reporting requirements described in Section B.

Any problems encountered that either have consequences for the
project's budget or time schedule shall be brought to the attention of the
NCES COTR in these weekly progress summaries. 	 Task 12.  Data File
Preparation and Documentation

The data collected during the conduct of the NHES shall be entered
directly into a computer file through the CATI system.  Nevertheless,
additional steps will be necessary to prepare the data for public release
and analysis.  The contractor shall take the necessary steps to convert the
raw data entered by the CATI interviewers to a more useable form. 	
12.1  Data Coding and Editing.  Although most data edits shall occur
on-line as the CATI interviewers enter responses into the computer (see Task
8), additional data editing and coding shall be performed at the conclusion
of the data collection period.  These editing and coding activities shall
involve both computer-assisted and manual activities.   


Respondent data records shall be reviewed for completeness and for
any other problems (e.g., inappropriate skips, out-of-range values, input
errors) that may have occurred during the conduct of the survey.  Problem
records shall be identified and appropriate corrective actions taken. A
status report on data editing shall be submitted to the COTR, including a
description of how any errors (e.g., unexpectedly high edit failure) during
this phase of the processing were resolved. 	 	

Examples of completeness and accuracy in data editing and file preparation
include: 	 

1.  There are no unreadable fields on any record nor
unallowable characters.

2.  Valid skips (missing data due to skip patterns) are not imputed and can
be distinguished from valid zeros and nonzero survey data.

3.  The files carry all of the sampling variables agreed to between the
contractor and the NCES COTR, and those variables are documented.

4.  The data on the datafile to be delivered for COTR review have been
checked and basic tables run.

5.  The data are checked against known data for reasonableness (i.e., there
aren't twice as many parents of children in the age group being studied as
reported on CPS for a roughly comparable year) and discrepancies are
resolved.

6.  Indications that specified edits are not working as expected (i.e., very
high failure rates) are brought quickly to the attention of the COTR and
modifications are implemented with COTR's knowledge and summary review if
necessary. 	 A plan for post-CATI edit checks shall be submitted to the
NCES COTR.  The COTR will review the plan and provide comments and
suggestions within two weeks.  Incorporating the comments and suggestions
made by the COTR, the contractor shall revise its post-CATI editing plan and
submit a revised plan. 

The contractor shall maintain for the COTR's inspection the records
and results of the data editing and corrective actions.  These records shall
be delivered to the COTR on request.  A status report of the data editing
and corrective actions shall be delivered to the COTR.  This status report
shall include cumulative summary statistics by instrument on the number of
problems detected for the various types of items; and the status and method
of corrective actions taken.

The contractor shall submit specifications for the coding of
open-ended items. When appropriate, the coding specifications, which shall
be approved in advance by the COTR, shall be consistent with those used in
previous surveys (i.e., NHES spring 1995).  The contractor shall receive
comments from the COTR within two weeks and have one week to revise the
specifications based on the COTR's comments and to submit the final coding
specifications to the NCES COTR. 

The contractor shall code responses to all open-ended questions
according to the approved coding specifications.  Examples of the types and
numbers of open-ended questions that the contractor can expect to find in
the NHES include industry and occupation items and major field of study.
Appendix C lists the open-ended items from NHES:95.

The contractor shall use common formats and procedures for editing,
coding, error resolution, and documentation for each NHES.  In addition, for
those collections that involve administration of items from prior NHES
surveys, the contractor shall use the same format and procedures that were
used during the earlier collections, unless alternative formats and
procedures are approved by the NCES COTR.  The use of these common formats
and procedures will increase the comparability of the data from the
different survey administrations and will enable users to compare data from
the different collections with a minimum of effort. 

12.2  Data Conversion.  The contractor shall design, establish, and
carry out the procedures necessary to convert the data in the CATI system to
CD-ROM with electronic codebook format.  The datasets on the CD-ROM shall be
made available in three formats: 1)ASCII format; 2)SAS/PC; 3)SPSS/PC.
ASCII-readable input files shall be used by the contractor to create
Electronic Codebooks (ECBs) for the separate files.  

The contractor shall evaluate the previous NHES CD-ROM and propose
enhanced features, such as Windows capability, or the availability of
formats for STATA.  The contractor shall deliver a plan for all
recommendations and revision which includes a cost estimate.  The contractor
shall consider the implications that any changes will have on the
compatibility with the previous NHES CD-ROM.

The contractor shall submit a plan to the NCES COTR that describes
the proposed structure and specifications for the data files.  The COTR will
review the plan and provide comments within two weeks.  A revised plan shall
be submitted.  The plan shall not be implemented without the approval of the
COTR.

12.3  Creation of Composite and Classification Variables.  The
contractor shall propose and create composite (e.g., SES using income
measures, parent's education and occupation) and classification variables
(e.g., race/ethnicity, highest level of parent education, family/household
composition, count of adults in household, etc.) for use by analysts.  A
plan for the creation of composite and classification variables shall be
submitted.  The COTR shall review the plan and provide comments and
suggestions within two weeks.  A revised plan incorporating the changes
requested by the COTR shall be submitted within one week of receipt of the
COTR's comments.  Once approved, these variables shall be included on the
public use data files and their definitions and code included in the NHES
data file user's manual. 

12.4  Item Nonresponse. Since the data from the NHES will be used to
monitor the participation of children and adults in a variety of
education-related activities over time, it is important that the impact of
item nonresponse on survey estimates be considered carefully.  The
contractor shall analyze the level of item nonresponse for the individual
survey items and propose a plan for full imputation of missing item data. 
The imputed data shall be placed on the public-use and restricted-use data
files, along with appropriate documentation and imputation flag variables. 
The contractor shall propose a plan for full imputation of missing data and
present it to the COTR.  Following approval or modification of the
imputation scheme, the contractor shall prepare imputation specifications;
these should be delivered to the COTR upon finalization.

The contractor should also prepare a report, analyzing the item
nonresponse, as part of the methodology reports.  

12.5  Sample Weights.  The contractor shall develop sample weights
to apply to the data.  The weights are necessary to produce estimates
required for various summaries and analyses.  The weights shall incorporate
a unit (complete interview) nonresponse rate adjustment for individuals in
different "weighting classes," as well as an adjustment for non-telephone
households. The contractor should propose a strategy also for dealing with
households not on the telephone lists but which do possess telephones; at a
minimum, the contractor shall evaluate the potential bias for excluding this
type of household. Weighting classes and adjustment procedures shall be
consistent with NCES Standards.

The following are a few examples of data quality checks that should
be performed after the sampling weights are applied to all cases on the file:


1.  The sum total of weighted interviews is equal to the population totals
used in the poststratification process, and all subgroup totals sum to the
grand total.

2.  All imputed data items have a valid in-range value and are flagged as
imputed.

3.  Imputed data are checked against the distribution of unimputed data and
match that distribution within a reasonable margin of error.

The contractor shall document the procures planned for use in
developing the weights and submit these plans to the COTR.  Two weeks shall
be allowed for the COTR's review.  The contractor shall have one week to
make any revisions resulting from the COTR's review and submit a revised
plan. 

12.6.  Public Release Files and User's Manuals.  The contractor
shall prepare (following NCES standards on datafiles and documentation) and
deliver to the COTR preliminary or draft copies of the following
computer-related products:

1. NHES CD-ROM containing a separate datafile for each topical
component. Files on CD-ROM shall be in ASCII, SAS-PC and SPSS-PC for Windows
formats.

2. User's manual (patterned after NHES:96) for each of the files. 
The User's Manuals will also include a codebook print file containing
well-documented, weighted and unweighted frequency tables for all variables
contained in the master files.

3. User's Guides that provide suggestions for using the data sets. 
These guides will be patterned after the Guides produced for NHES:96.  These
guides will also include a section that instructs CD-ROM users in the use of
the ECB.

4. READ.ME files that will be included on the CD-ROM that will
provide guidelines for accessing the data files and describing the data
files contained on the CD-ROM.

The User's Manuals shall include documentation that is of sufficient
detail to enable any user to fully understand the files.  The manuals shall
include, but not be limited to the following information:

o	a description of the NHES sample design 	    

o	a description of the data collection procedures

    o	a description of the response rates for each stage of the
sample and for each topical component

    o	a discussion and evaluation of the design effects of the
NHES sample

    o	standard errors for key (representative) statistics

  o	a codebook that contains the unweighted and weighted
frequencies and percentages for each survey item

The User's Manuals using data from the NHES:96 study shall be used
as a model for the User's Manuals developed under this procurement.  (See
Appendix B).

The COTR's review of data files and User's Manuals will be completed
four (4) weeks after receipt of the draft/preliminary deliverables.  The
contractor shall have two (2) weeks to submit revised copies of the manuals
following the COTR's review.  The COTR's comments and suggestions shall be
taken into consideration when developing these final products.

Following the COTR's approval, 10 copies of the User's Manuals shall
be sent to the COTR along with the final public use data files.  At the same
time, the contractor shall deliver two masters of a CD containing the ASCII
data files, SAS for Windows and SPSS for Windows data files. 	 	The
contractor shall produce and deliver an Electronic Codebook (ECB) similar to
those produced for previous NHES collections.  The COTR shall review the ECB
and provide comments within four weeks.

12.7  Restricted-use Data Files and User's Manuals.  Following the
same steps presented in Task 12.6 above, the contractor shall produce data
files that contain restricted-use data.  These data files will contain all
the variables not included on the public-use files, including potential
identifiers of respondents (e.g., State codes, Census ZIPcode data,
telephone area codes, etc.).  These files will be distributed by the
government through NCES site-license agreements.

12.8  Disclosure Review Board.  NCES standards for release of
public-use data require that the data ready for release be submitted to the
Disclosure Review Board. This process usually entails having the dataset
tested out and ready to certify as "clean," meaning that all of the
procedures in NCES' Statistical Standard for Machine-Readable Products
(IV-06-92), and that data suppression or conversion has been performed on
individually-identifiable data (NCES Statistical Standard for Maintaining
Confidentiality, IV-01-92). There should be a data release product, usually
a Statistics in Brief, and a User's Manual, to submit to the DRB at the same
time. The contractor shall submit a memorandum detailing those items that
might be considered disclosure risks (generally, a combination of any 2
variables which results in fewer than 3 cases in any cell in a
cross-tabulation). This memorandum shall also contain an analysis of the
data suppression technique used, such as a distribution of cases "before"
and "after" the suppression. Another consideration is that any identifier of
a respondent record to a state (a telephone area code does identify a
geographic area within a state), when the design of the survey is not
state-representative (i.e., insufficient sample) must suppress the state
code, if part of an identification code, for example. 

12.9  Maintenance of Necessary Data Files.  The contractor shall
maintain complete data files for all administrations of the NHES and all
supplemental files created and obtained in support of this study. 
Maintenance of data files means keeping data file documentation available
for reproduction on request from data users on a cost-reimbursable basis and
keeping a machine-readable copy of each data file, so that copies can be
supplied to the COTR on request. 

Certain of the data files that shall be maintained may not be made
available to the public because of privacy considerations.  In these cases,
file maintenance means that the data files shall be kept intact, in a form
that can be updated or copied.  Data files shall not be allowed to expire,
to be released, to be overwritten, or otherwise destroyed.  These files
shall be maintained with a software system capable of easily interlinking
them for analytic (or other) purposes while, at the same time, preserving
the necessary confidentiality requirements of the study. Task 13.  Data
Analysis and Reporting

13.1 Analysis Reports.  The contractor shall perform analyses of the
survey data and prepare a Statistics in Brief publication for each data file
both survey years, and a Statistical Analysis report for each data file in
NHES 2001 and one Statistical Analysis report for NHES 2003. The Statistics
in Brief reports shall be prepared first, and shall serve two purposes:

1)  To adjudicate the public release data files, and 	

2)  To stimulate interest in the NHES data.


A Statistics in Brief report is no more than 16 pages in length and
may contain the following information:


1)  Short introduction with brief review of relevant literature;

2)  Description of NHES survey; 

3)  Results or highlights section;

4)  Conclusions;

5)  A number of major tables, with standard errors;

6)  Figures from table data (optional);

7)  Description of NHES survey design and methods;

8)  Characteristics of sample used in report;

9)  Generalizabilty of sample -- potential for bias;

10) Significance testing and sampling errors;

11)  Acknowledgments section.

A Statistical Analysis report is longer and contains similar
information as described above.  For examples of both Statistics in Brief
reports and Statistical Analysis reports, see the publication list in
Appendix B.

The contractor will use as a model previous Statistics in Briefs and
Statistical Analysis reports written, using NHES data.  The exact format
will be determined by the COTR and all reports prepared by the contractor
shall follow NCES publications standards (See publication list in Appendix
B).  A proposal for the Statistics in Brief and Statistical
Analysis reports shall be submitted to the COTR. The COTR will take two
weeks for review, and the contractor shall submit the revised outlines,
incorporating the COTR's review comments, one week later.  Once the outline
is approved by the COTR, the contractor shall begin preparation of the
reports.  The COTR expects that several iterations will be required for each
report. The COTR shall require a minimum of two weeks for the review of at
least one of the iterations.  In addition to hardcopy, all reports shall be
submitted on floppy diskette, or by electronic mail if appropriate, using
Microsoft Word.  The contractor and the NCES COTR will jointly author the
reports.  No information in a report shall be released prior to NCES release
of the report.

Examples of completeness and accuracy in reports are as follows:

1. Numbers reported are consistent within a report (i.e., between tables)
and with any prior reports based upon the same data.

2. Tables/graphs/figures are clearly labeled and understood, and include all
necessary notation.

3.  Labels are consistent among tables, graphs, and figures.

4.  Suppression rules are followed.

5.  Results of tests of significance are reported in the text of drafts.

6.  All text follows a logical and coherent progression from introduction to
purpose to results to discussion.

7.  Statements in the text are supported by test results.

8.  Statements in the text are consistent with the meaning/intent of
questionnaire items.

9.  Ambiguous terms are defined.

10.  The contractor shall bring to the attention of the NCES COTR all data
which appear unexpected or unusual.

11.  Materials meet standards set forth in "NCES Statistical Standards" and
the "OERI Publications Guide."

All differences cited in the text of the report shall be supported
by an appropriate statistical test (e.g., Bonferroni-adjusted t-test, chi
square, etc.).  Standard errors of the estimates presented in the brief
shall be reported in the technical appendix. Standard errors for the brief
should be calculated according to one of the methods specified in Task 13-2
(see below). 	Statistics in Brief, Statistical Analysis reports,
and most other published products (Working Papers are an exception) go
through a peer review process termed "adjudication." This process follows
internal review through the Group level, and requires that the publication
be sent out to several academic or government reviewers who are chosen for
their expertise in the subject area, as well as other parts of the
Department of Education. Five weeks should be allowed for circulation of the
report to be adjudicated. An adjudication meeting is scheduled at the end of
the review period, and all members convene or send in their comments and all
comments are discussed. Comments are accepted, modified, or rejected, by
consensus, and the contractor must incorporate the comments and write up a
memorandum to the Adjudicator detailing the changes within two weeks
following the meeting. At that point, once all parties have given their
approval (i.e., Program Director, Associate Commissioner, Technical
Reviewer, Chief Statistician), the publication camera-ready copy or
electronic file prepared.  

13.2  Standard Error Calculations.  The contractor shall develop and
implement procedures (see NCES Statistical Standards) to enable users of the
NHES to estimate the sampling errors of survey estimates.  The contractor
shall calculate estimates of design effect values for a minimum of thirty
variables for the total population and for various subgroups of selected
respondent characteristics  (e.g., sex, race/ethnicity, SES, and at least
two other variables recommended by the contractor).  Means and standard
deviations of the design effect distributions shall be calculated.  The same
set of procedures shall be followed for each public release file developed
under this contract. 

The data files created by the contractor for each NHES topical
component shall contain the elements necessary to support the calculation of
standard errors for complex designs using one of three possible
methods--balanced repeated replication (BRR), jackknife repeated replication
(JRR), or Taylor series procedures (TSP).  If the contractor uses a software
package to calculate these standard errors other than those available to the
COTR, it shall make this package available to the COTR.  

The contractor shall provide replicate codes that indicate the
computing strata and the half-sample to which each sample unit belongs and
the contractor shall provide, for each sample unit, the replicate weights
for all replicates that were formed in order to calculate variances.  In
addition, the contractor shall provide the stratum code and PSU code that
identifies each sample unit. 	Regardless of the method used, the
contractor shall describe in detail the method used to calculate the
standard errors of survey estimates in the User's Manual.  This description
shall instruct users how to use the data elements and the associated
software to calculate sample variances for the NHES.  A short example of the
method and the use of the available software shall be provided in the
manual. The contractor shall propose how to calculate variances that are
suitable for users (i.e., software is widely available). The contractor
shall document how to use those variances in the sample design report and
the User's Manual.

The contractor shall prepare a plan for measuring sampling errors
and submit it to the COTR for review.  At the same time, a plan for
describing non-response patterns for each data collection and for estimating
non-response bias for key variables shall be submitted.  The plan will be
reviewed within two weeks by the COTR, and the contractor shall submit a
revised plan within one week of receipt of comments.  Results of the
analyses shall be included in the User's Manual (see Task 12.6) and in the
Methodology Report (see Task 14).   


Task 14. Methodology Report

The contractor shall submit an outline and production schedule for
the methodology reports (one for each administration year) that document the
entire project including:  (1) a description of the sample design,
weighting, and imputation scheme (sample design report); (2) item
nonresponse rates, unit nonresponse rates, and bias analysis (nonresponse
and bias report); (3) instrument development and CATI specifications (CATI
methodology report); (4) data collection procedures (field methodology
report); (5) and data quality report.

It is important that technical reports describe as fully as possible the
study design and all procedures used to conduct the survey.  Special
features of the study shall be described in detail and any problems
encountered either during the design or implementation of the survey
identified.  Changes that were made to the design and/or procedures in
response to unanticipated problems shall be documented.  The reports shall
include major findings pertaining to the methods used and/or experimented
with during the conduct of the study and discuss their implications for
future surveys. 

EXHIBIT 1. SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES FOR NHES:2001
Deliverable (Task)					Completion/Due Date
Initial Meeting	(1.7)					April 2, 1999		
Draft Project Management Plan (1.8)			May 14, 1999				
TRP Plan (2.1)						May 14, 1999											June 11, 1999
Final Project Management Plan (1.8)			June 4, 1999		
Draft Research Priority List to TRP (3.3)		July 16, 1999
Outline of Extant Surveys Research (3.4)		August 6, 1999		
Draft of Extant Surveys Research (3.4)			August 27, 1999		
Outline of Questionnaire Content (3.5)			August 27, 1999
Draft Cognitive Laboratory Research Plan (4.3)		August 27, 1999		
Revised Extant Surveys Research (3.4)			September 17, 1999
Revised Questionnaire Content Outline (3.5)		October 8, 1999
Draft Sample Design Plan (5)				October 15, 1999
Literature Review Plan (3.2)				October 15, 1999
Draft Cognitive Research Report (4.3)			October 29, 1999
Revised Sample Design Plan (5)				November 5, 1999
Comments on Questionnaire Summarized from TRP (3.3)	November 12, 1999
Revised Cognitive Research Report (4.3)			November 19, 1999
Draft Project Bibliography 1 (1.5)			November 19, 1999
Draft Literature Reviews (3.2)				November 19, 1999
Draft Copies of Survey Instruments (4.1)		November 19, 1999
Revised Project Bibliography 1 (1.5)			December 10, 1999
Second Draft of Survey Instruments (4.1)		December 10, 1999
Survey Design Report Plan Outline (6)			December 10, 1999
Third Draft of Survey Instruments (4.1)			December 31, 2000		
Draft Survey Design Report (6)				January 7, 2000		
Draft IMT/OMB Clearance Package (7)			January 7, 2000		
Revised IMT/OMB Clearance Package (7)			January 28, 2000		
Revised Survey Design Report (6)			January 28, 2000		
Final IMT/OMB Clearance Package to Submit (7)		February 18, 2000	
Draft Field Test Plan (9.1)				February 18, 2000
Field Test Plan (9.1)					March 10, 2000		
Draft CATI Edit Specifications (8.1)			March 17, 2000
Draft CATI Instrument (8.4)				April 11, 2000		
Revised CATI Edit Specifications (8.1)			August 11, 2000	
Field Test Report & Revised CATI Instrument (9.3)	September 22, 2000
Draft Spanish and English language CATI Screens (8.5)	September 30, 2000	
IMT/OMB Revised Clearance Package Memo (9.4) [10 copies]October 13, 2000	
Revised Spanish CATI Screens (8.5)			October 30, 2000	
Interviewer Training Program Outline (10.1)		November 3, 2000
Draft Project Bibliography 2 (1.5)			November 10, 2000
Hard Copy of Final Instrument (9.5)			November 17, 2000		
Draft Interviewer Training Materials (10.1)		November 27, 2000
Revised Project Bibliography 2 (1.5)			December 1, 2000
Revised Interviewer Training Materials (10.1)		December 22, 2000
DATA COLLECTION BEGINS					January 8, 2001
Draft Plan for Post-CATI Edit Specifications (12.1)	February 19, 2001	
Draft Plan  for Coding of Open-Ended Items (12.1)	February 19, 2001


Deliverable (Task)		Completion/Due Date	
Draft Plan for Data File Specifications (12.2)		February 19, 2001
Draft Plan for Creation of Composite Variables (12.3)	February 19, 2001	
Draft Plan for Sample Weights (12.5)			February 19, 2001		
Draft Plan for Standard Error Calculations (13.2)	February 19, 2001		
Revised Plan for Post-CATI Editing (12.1)		March 12, 2001		
Revised Plan for Coding of Open-Ended Items (12.1)	March 12, 2001
Revised Plan for Data File Specifications (12.2)	March 12, 2001		
Revised Plan for Creation of Composite Variables (12.3)	March 12, 2001
Revised Plan for Sample Weights (12.5)			March 12, 2001		
Revised Plan for Standard Error Calculations (13.2)	March 12, 2001	
DATA COLLECTION ENDS					Apr. 1, 2001
Revised Project Bibliography (1.5)			April 23, 2001
Revised Literature Reviews (3.2)			April 23, 2001
Final Item Nonresponse Specifications (12.4)		April 30, 2001		
Draft/Preliminary Data Files (12.6)			May 14, 2001		
Draft User's Manuals/Guides (12.6)			May 14, 2001		
Final Survey Design Report (6)				May 28, 2001		
Draft Statistics in Briefs (3) (13.1)			June 8, 2001		
Methodology Report Outline (14)				June 11, 2001		
Revised Data Files (12.6)				June 25, 2001		
Revised User's Manuals/Guides (12.6)			June 25, 2001		
Draft ECB (12.6)					June 25, 2001
Draft Statistical Analysis Report 1 (13.1)		June 25, 2001
Draft Statistical Analysis Report 2 (13.1)		July 6, 2001
Draft Statistical Analysis Report 3 (13.1)		July 20, 2001
Revised Statistical Analysis Report 1 (13.1)		August 17, 2001		
Revised ECB (12.6)					August 25, 2001
Revised Statistical Analysis Report 2 (13.1)		August 31, 2001
Revised Statistical Analysis Report 3 (13.1)		September 14, 2001		
Final Statistics in Briefs (3) (13.1)			September 28, 2001
Draft Project Bibliography 3 (1.5)			November 2, 2001		
Draft Methodology Report (14)				November 9, 2001
Revised Project Bibliography 3 (1.5)			November 23, 2001
Final Methodology Report (14)				November 30, 2001
Final Statistical Analysis Report 1 (13.1)		March 1, 2002
Final Statistical Analysis Report 2 (13.1)		March 15, 2002
Final Statistical Analysis Report 3 (13.1)		March 29, 2002		

NOTES:    o   Unless otherwise indicated, the COTR will review all
deliverables and provide feedback within two weeks.

o  Unless otherwise indicated, five copies of each deliverable are
required.

o  Not covered in this exhibit are the following:

1) Summary Reports and Recordings of all Technical Review Panel  2) Meetings
(Task 2); 		2)   Weekly progress reports throughout data
collection (Task 11-3); 3) Briefing materials (Task 1.3);  4) Project
Leaflet (Task 1.4); and,  5) Monthly letters of progress. 		 o 
A copy of the monthly letters of progress and the final methodology report
shall be delivered to the Contracting Officer (CO).

EXHIBIT 2. SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES FOR NHES:2003

Deliverable (Task)				Completion/Due Date 
Initial Meeting	(1.7)				June 2, 2000					
Draft Project Management Plan (1.8)		July 28, 2000				
TRP Plan (2.1)					July 28, 2000											June 11, 1999
Final Project Management Plan (1.8)		August 18, 2000			
Draft Research Priority List to TRP (3.3)	September 29, 2000
Outline of Extant Surveys Research (3.4)	November 3, 2000			
Draft of Extant Surveys Research (3.4)		November 24, 2000			
Outline of Questionnaire Content (3.5)		November 24, 2000
Draft Cognitive Laboratory Research Plan (4.3)	November 24, 2000		
Revised Extant Surveys Research (3.4)		December 8, 2000
Draft Project Leaflet (1.4)			December 29, 2000
Literature Review Plan (3.2)			December 29, 2000
Revised Questionnaire Content Outline (3.5)	December 29, 2000
Draft Sample Design Plan (5)			January 12, 2001
Revised Project Leaflet (1.4)			January 26, 2001
Draft Cognitive Research Report (4.3)		January 26, 2001
Revised Sample Design Plan (5)			February 9, 2001
Comments on Questionnaire Summarized from TRP (3.3)	February 16, 2001
Draft Literature Reviews (3.2)			March 2, 2001
Revised Cognitive Research Report (4.3)		March 2, 2001
Draft Copies of Survey Instruments (4.1)	March 9, 2001
Second Draft of Survey Instruments (4.1)	March 30, 2001
Survey Design Report Plan Outline (6)		April 13, 2001
Third Draft of Survey Instruments (4.1)		April 27, 2001			
Draft Survey Design Report (6)			May 11, 2001				
Draft IMT/OMB Clearance Package (7)		May 25, 2001			
Revised IMT/OMB Clearance Package (7)		June 8, 2001		
Revised Survey Design Report (6)		June 8, 2001			
Final IMT/OMB Clearance Package to Submit (7)	July 20, 2001	
Draft Field Test Plan (9.1)			August 10, 2001
Field Test Plan (9.1)				December 14, 2001					
Draft CATI Edit Specifications (8.1)		January 11, 2002			
Draft CATI Instrument (8.4)			February 15, 2002 
Revised CATI Edit Specifications (8.1)		June 20, 2002
Field Test Report & Revised CATI Instrument (9.3)	July 12, 2002 
Draft Spanish and English language CATI Screens (8.5)	October 11, 2002		
IMT/OMB Revised Clearance Package Memo (9.4) [10 copies]	October 11, 2002	
Revised Spanish CATI Screens (8.5)		October 18, 2002					
Interviewer Training Program Outline (10.1)	November 1, 2002
Draft Project Bibliography 4 (1.5)		November 8, 2002		
Hard Copy of Final Instrument (9.5)		November 15, 2002
Revised Project Bibliography 4 (1.5)		November 29, 2002			
Draft Interviewer Training Materials (10.1)	November 29, 2002
Revised Interviewer Training Materials (10.1)	December 20, 2002		
DATA COLLECTION BEGINS				January 3, 2003
Draft Plan for Post-CATI Edit Specifications (12.1)	February 14, 2003	
Draft Plan  for Coding of Open-Ended Items (12.1)	February 14, 2003	

Deliverable (Task)				Completion/Due Date
Draft Plan for Data File Specifications (12.2)	February 14, 2003		
Draft Plan for Creation of Composite Variables (12.3)	February 14, 2003	
Draft Plan for Sample Weights (12.5)		February 14, 2003			
Draft Plan for Standard Error Calculations (13.2)	February 14, 2003		
Revised Plan for Post-CATI Editing (12.1)	March 14, 2003		
Revised Plan for Coding of Open-Ended Items (12.1)	March 14, 2003
Revised Plan for Data File Specifications (12.2)	March 14, 2003		
Revised Plan for Creation of Composite Variables (12.3)	March 14, 2003
Revised Plan for Sample Weights (12.5)			March 14, 2003			
Revised Plan for Standard Error Calculations (13.2)	March 14, 2003	
DATA COLLECTION ENDS					Apr. 4, 2003
Revised Literature Reviews (3.2)			April 18, 2003
Final Item Nonresponse Specifications (12.4)		April 25, 2003			
Draft/Preliminary Data Files (12.6)			May 23, 2003			
Draft User's Manuals/Guides (12.6)			May 23, 2003			
Final Survey Design Report (6)				May 30, 2003				
Draft Statistics in Briefs (3) (13.1)			June 13, 2003			
Methodology Report Outline (14)				June 20, 2003				
Revised Data Files (12.6)				July 7, 2003					
Revised User's Manuals/Guides (12.6)			July 7, 2003			
Draft ECB (12.6)					July 7, 2003
Draft Statistical Analysis Report (13.1)		July 7, 2003
Revised Statistical Analysis Reports 3 (13.1)		August 8, 2003					
Revised ECB (12.6)					August 29, 2003					
Final Statistics in Brief (13.1)			October 3, 2003
Draft Project Bibliography 5 (1.5)			November 7, 2003				
Draft Methodology Report (14)				November 21, 2003
Revised Project Bibliography 5 (1.5)			November 28, 2003
Final Methodology Report (14)				December 12, 2003
Final Statistical Analysis Report (13.1)		January 2, 2004			

NOTES: 	o  Unless otherwise indicated, the COTR will review all deliverables
and provide feedback within two weeks.

o  Unless otherwise indicated, five copies of each deliverable are
required.

o  Not covered in this exhibit are the following:

1)  Summary Reports and Recordings of all Technical Review
Panel Meetings    (Task 2);

2)   Weekly progress reports throughout data collection
(Task 11.3);

3) Briefing materials (Task 1.3); 

4) Project Leaflet (Task 1.4)

5) Monthly letters of progress.

0   A copy of the monthly letters of progress and the final
methodology report shall be delivered to the Contracting Officer (CO).

B.  REPORTING

The contractor shall submit 3 copies of monthly letters of progress to
theCOTR for the duration of the contract:  1 copy to the Contracting Officer
(CO), and 2 copies to the COTR.  Progress reports shall describe the work in
progress, indicate any problems encountered, and in the event of delays,
shall propose ways of bringing the effort back on schedule.   Progress
letters shall be submitted by the 15th day of each month.

A summary of project expenditures shall also be included in each letter
ofprogress.  Project expenditures shall include:  1) a table summarizing, by
task, the budgeted cost for the month, the actual cost for the month, the
cumulative budgeted cost, the cumulative actual cost, the percent of
contracted amount spent to date, the estimated cost to complete, the total
estimated cost, the contracted cost, and the difference between the total
estimated cost and the contracted cost; 2) appropriate records and
information to permit the COTR to certify that the services that are listed
on monthly bills are actually used and are for official purposes; and 3) a
manpower report prepared and signed by the project director that summarizes
actual personnel assignments for the month just completed, showing for each
named individual the hours charged by task.  The format chosen shall be
consistent from month to month.  Also, the same format shall be used to
report on any subcontractor activity costs.  The contractor shall notify the
Contracting Officer if the projected costs of the project are expected to
exceed the project budget.

The contractor shall communicate regularly (several times each week),
andwork closely with the NCES COTR on all aspects of the study.  To
facilitate this communication, the COTR expects the contractor to set up an
electronic system for transferring information via electronic mail and
microcomputer.  In addition, the contractor shall make at least six visits
per year to the COTR to discuss project problems and progress.  To the
greatest extent possible, the contractor shall coordinate these meetings
with meetings of the Technical Review Panels.


C.  EXPECTATIONS CONCERNING QUALITY OF, CORPORATE SUPPORT FOR, AND         
TIMING OF DELIVERABLES

Although the term "draft" is used frequently in the Scope of Work,
it is important that the contractor understand what NCES means and does not
mean by "draft".  A draft is a complete product of high quality that the
contractor (and the government) would be proud to distribute.  A "draft" is
not simply what is available on the due date-regardless of completeness or
quality.  NCES anticipates that only minor changes to drafts will be needed
for them to become final deliverables.

Every deliverable shall be sent with a cover memorandum signed or initialed
by the project director or someone of higher corporate stature than the
project director.  The cover memorandum shall certify that the contractor's
organization stands behind the quality of the product.  This holds for all
products-even those prepared primarily by consultants or subcontractors.  At
no time will the government take direct delivery of a product from a
consultant or subcontractor. All draft deliverables shall be due at the
office of the COTR on or before their due date.  Draft deliverables of 10
pages or less may be sent by electronic mail to the COTR and other
appropriate project staff.  Draft deliverables of more than 10 pages must be
sent to the COTR such that they arrive on or before their due date.  And,
unless otherwise specified, five copies of each deliverable shall be
required.  Contractors must justify use of and obtain prior approval for use
of any delivery service more expensive than USPS priority mail.

D.   THE ADJUDICATION PROCESS

Adjudication of NCES reports is a process of internal review,
followed by a peer review meeting. At the adjudication meeting, comments
from reviewers both within NCES and from subject-matter experts or technical
experts are reconciled. All NCES reports except for Working Papers go
through adjudication. Following adjudication, the report must be revised per
the agreements reached in the meeting. A post-adjudication memorandum
detailing the changes that were agreed-upon is a standard operating
procedure. Some comments can be answered without necessarily making
revisions to the report, provided that such comments are deemed to be beyond
the scope of the report. However, all comments received must be addressed.

The contractor shall allow sufficient time for NCES and OERI review.

E.   FORMS CLEARANCE

The contractor shall prepare all written materials needed in the
formal clearance and approval process according to IMT/OMB requirements. 
This approval process typically involves the following series of steps:  1)
Submission of draft copies of questionnaires to the COTR for review (part of
Task 4); 2) Revision of draft copies and presentation to NHES TRP members
for comments (Task 2); 3) Revision of drafts and presentation to NCES
Interdivisional Review panel (Task 7); 4) Submission of draft of clearance
package including instruments and justification for NCES, Office of the
Commissioner review (part of Task 7); 5) Revision of package and submission
to IMT for review (part of Task 7); 6) Revision of and submission to OMB for
review (part of Task 7); and 7) Revision and submission of package for final
approval based on OMB review and comments (part of Task 7).  For the IMT/OMB
clearance package, the contractor shall provide item-by-item justification
as well as justification for each major section of the questionnaire (e.g.,
background, education history, work history).  Not only shall each item be
justified by itself, it shall be justified as being a part of a major
content area.  Reasons for including selected items and not including other
items shall be provided.  The contractor staff shall be prepared to join the
COTR in person for a review of the materials with IMT/OMB staff (if
necessary).  Eighteen (18) weeks (four calendar months) shall be allowed for
the IMT/OMB review process following submission of the revised clearance
package at 32 weeks prior to the start of data collection.  The contractor
shall assure that authorization by IMT/OMB has been obtained before field
test data collection begins.  All hard copies of the data collection forms
shall bear the approval number assigned by OMB.  CATI interviewers shall
have this number available to respond to survey participant inquiries.

F.  ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

The contractor shall transmit all correspondence directly to the
NCES COTR via cc:Mail or another mutually agreed-upon communications
package.  As of 1998, NCES uses Office '97:  Word, PowerPoint, and Excel as
its primary software packages for communicating documents, charts, and
tables.  NCES uses the Department of Education's cc:Mail software as its
communications package.  All deliverables are to be the version of Word,
PowerPoint, Excel, and/or other software packages used by NCES.  In
addition, all final versions of reports shall be delivered in both a HTML
and PDF version for distribution on the internet.  

Appendix A Background Information on the NHES


NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION SURVEY (NHES) PROGRAM HISTORY

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) more often
collects data through school-based surveys of teachers, students, and
schools, and through its administrative records surveys of school districts,
and state education agencies.  Data collected in this manner have been the
foundation of the NCES' program to fulfill its legislative mandate to
collect and report information on the condition of education in the United
States.  The collection of data from noninstitutional samples of
individuals, particularly household-based data collections, was limited
prior to the addition of the NHES program.

The NHES is a vehicle for collecting detailed information on
educational issues from a relatively large and targeted sample of households
in a timely fashion.  It fills a need that existing household surveys, such
as the Current Population Survey (CPS), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and the Bureau of  the Census, and the Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP), sponsored by the Bureau of the Census, cannot
satisfy because such surveys were designed to focus primarily on issues
other than education.  If data are collected on education issues, it is
usually done as a supplement to the main surveys.  The level of detail in
these supplements is often extremely limited because the sponsoring agency
has practical constraints in obtaining the amount of data needed to address
the basic issues of the survey as well as any supplementary data.  As a
result, data collected in this manner have often failed to provide NCES with
the level of detail needed for desired analyses.  In addition, because the
existing sample designs of the main survey are established to meet specific
objectives, it is not possible to target them to meet the design objectives
associated with the educational issues.  Consequently, sample sizes are
sometimes inadequate for the applications required by NCES.

NCES added the NHES to its repertoire of programs in 1988, with the
award of a contract to conduct a field test collection in 1989.  An option
was exercised under that contract to conduct the first full-scale NHES in
1991 (NHES:91).  A second competitively awarded contract covered the conduct
of the NHES:93, the NHES:95, and the NHES:96.  That contract ended after a
60 month period of performance.  The third competitively awarded contract is
currently operating to conduct the NHES:99, and the contract covers a 42
month period of performance.

A full list of NHES publications can be found in Appendix B.  Those
publications marked with an asterisk are considered required reading for the
purpose of this procurement.

COMPLETED NHES COLLECTIONS

One large-scale field test and four full-scale NHES collections
(NHES:91, 93, 95, and 96) have been completed to date. The topics addressed
by these collections are discussed in the following sections.  Detailed
information about the design of these collections can be found in the papers
and reports listed in Appendix A.

1989 Field Test

A field test of the NHES as a methodology for collecting education
data was designed and conducted in the fall of 1989.  Data on two topics of
high priority to the NCES were collected during the field test--school
dropouts and early childhood education.  Other than the size of the sample,
the field test included all of the design features of a full-scale NHES. 
This included the use of random digit dialing (RDD) and computer assisted
telephone interviewing (CATI) methods.

The findings from the field test were encouraging for the future of
the NHES.  The field test demonstrated that many of the concerns surrounding
the use of a telephone survey to study education issues could be handled
adequately in practice.  It also revealed that each survey topic has its own
unique set of circumstances that must be explored individually.  

NHES:91

NCES implemented the first full-scale NHES in the spring of 1991. 
The topics selected for the NHES:91 were early childhood education and adult
education. 

The NHES:91 early childhood education component was an expansion of
the 1989 early childhood field test topic. The age range of the children
covered by the survey was extended from 3- to 5-year-olds to 3- to
8-year-olds.  Information on the early childhood education experiences
similar to that collected in the field test was collected for children not
yet enrolled in first grade.  The focus was on non-parental care and
education, characteristics of programs and care arrangements and activities
children engaged in with parents and other family members.  For those
children enrolled in primary school, the survey focused more heavily on: 
educational experiences to date; delayed entry into kindergarten and first
grade; retention; and parental involvement in schooling.

The second topical component of the 1991 survey concerned the
educational activities of members of the U.S. adult population. 
Specifically, the survey collected up-to-date information on the
participation of persons 16 years and older in a wide array of adult
education activities.  This survey component was based in large part on the
Current Population Survey (CPS) supplement on adult education, last
conducted in 1984.  Data were collected on the numbers and types of courses
in which adults had participated over the previous 12 months.  For the four
most recent courses information was collected on course content, provider,
sources of payment, and reason for taking the course.  The NHES adult
education component, unlike the adult education supplement to the CPS, also
asked questions of nonparticipants.  These questions focused on the need for
adult education, its availability, and barriers to participation.

In the NHES:91, 120,000 telephone numbers were dialed, and screening
interviews were completed in about 60,500 households.  One or more topical
interviews were completed in about 21,500 of the households.  Altogether,
about 14,000 early childhood interviews and 12,500 adult education
interviews were conducted.  The early childhood interviews were conducted
with the parent or guardian identified by the screener respondent as being
the most knowledgeable about the sample child.  The adult education
interviews were conducted with the sampled adults.

NHES:93

Topics covered in the NHES:93 were School Readiness and School
Safety and Discipline.  The population of interest in the School Readiness
component was children age 3 through age 7 and others enrolled up through
2nd grade.  Issues addressed were: developmental characteristics of
preschoolers, school adjustment and teacher feedback to parents for
kindergartners and primary students, center-based program participation,
early school experiences, home activities and health status.  Extensive
family and child background characteristics, including parent language and
education, income, receipt of public assistance and household composition,
were collected to permit the identification of at-risk children.

The population of interest in the School Safety and Discipline
component was children enrolled in grades 3 through 12.  Parents of these
children were interviewed about school learning environment, discipline
policy, safety at school, victimization, the availability and use of
alcohol/drugs, and alcohol/drug education.  Peer norms for behavior in
school and substance use were also included.  A subsample of the children in
grades 6 through 12 were also interviewed in the School Safety and
Discipline component.  The youth were asked essentially the same items as
their parents.  However, parents provided the extensive family and household
background information as well as characteristics of the school attended by
the child.

In the NHES:93, about 130,000 telephone numbers were dialed, and
screening interviews were completed in about 64,000 households.  One or more
topical interviews were completed in about 19,500 of the households. 
Altogether, about 11,000 school readiness interviews and 12,500 school
safety and discipline interviews were conducted with  knowledgeable parents
or guardians.  Also, about 6,500 school safety and discipline interviews
were conducted with 6th through 12th grade youth.

NHES:95

For the most part, topics included in the NHES:95 were a repeat of
those included in the NHES:91, early childhood education and adult
education.  The early childhood component focused a bit more on
characteristics of non-parental care and education arrangements and thus was
renamed early childhood program participation.   For the first time, the
population of interest included infants and toddlers, and interviews were
conducted with parents or guardians of children from birth through 3rd
grade, up to and including age 10.   

The NHES:95 adult education questionnaire was different from the
questionnaire used in 1991.  The earlier questionnaire was closely patterned
after that used in the 1984 CPS supplement on adult education.  Intervening
cognitive lab work suggested that a different questionnaire structure might
better capture the totality of adult education activities.  To preserve the
trend measure and to allow for crosswalk between the 1991 and 1995 estimates
of adult education participation, a sample of adults in 1995 received the
1991 version of the adult education participation items.  

The NHES:95 also included a small methodological study to test the
feasibility of expanding the screening interview to allow for collection of
data from the complete sample of households.

In the NHES:95, about 120,000 telephone numbers were dialed, and
screening interviews were completed in about 45,500 households.  One or more
topical interviews were completed in about 31,500 of the households. 
Altogether, about 14,000 early childhood interviews and 19,500 adult
education interviews were conducted.  The early childhood interviews were
conducted with the parent or guardian identified by the screener respondent
as being the most knowledgeable about the sample child.  The adult education
interviews were conducted with the sampled adults.

NHES:96

The NHES:96 covered the topics of family involvement in education;
civic and community involvement among adults and youth; and household
library use.  Children from age 3 through 12th grade were sampled for the
parent involvement component.  The most knowledgeable parent was interviewed
about the child's school experiences, family involvement in school and
schoolwork, school practices to involve families, and family involvement
outside of school.  Questions were also included about the involvement of
the non-custodial parent.

For adults, the civic and community involvement component included
questions about exposure to national news, participation in community and
political activity and political attitudes and knowledge.  These questions
were blended in with the parent involvement items for the parents of 6th
through 12 graders and some emphasis was given to how the family models
these involvement behaviors to the youth.  For youth in grades 6 through 12,
the civic and community involvement component included many of the same
items asked of adults, but also items that captured involvement in
activities that promote or indicate personal responsibility, including
service learning activities.

All households contacted in the NHES:96 were asked to respond to a
brief set of items about household use of public libraries.  In households
in which no persons were sampled for either of the two larger topical
components, the library items followed the screening items.  In households
in which someone was sampled for the more extensive topical interviews, the
library items appeared as part of the topical interview.

In the NHES:96, about 160,000 telephone numbers were dialed, and
screening interviews were completed in about 55,000 households.  Altogether,
about 21,000 Parent Involvement in Education/Parent Civic Involvement
interviews, 8,000 Youth Civic Involvement interviews, and 2,250 Adult Civic
Involvement interviews were completed.



NHES:99

The NHES:99 is scheduled to begin data collection in January 1999. 
The collection will include end-of-decade estimates of key indicators from
the surveys conducted throughout the 1990s.  It is expected that
approximately 60,000 households will be screened, and that a total of about
40,000 interviews will be conducted with parents of children from birth
through 12th grade, youth in 6th through 12th grade, and adults age 16 or
older and not enrolled in grade 12 or below.

Key indicators are expected to include participation of children in 
nonparental care and early childhood programs, school experiences,
parent/family involvement in education at home and at school, youth
community service activities, plans for future education, and adult
participation in educational activities and community service.




Appendix B

May 1998

 	National Household Education 	Survey Publication List

For copies of most of the National Household Education Survey publications,
visit our web site at http://nces.ed.gov/nhes 				 To
order single copies in print, call (877) 4ED-PUBS


CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

Student Interest in National News and Its Relation to School Courses, July
1997.  (10 pages, NCES 97-970)

Student Participation in Community Service Activity, April 1997.  (39 pages,
NCES 97-331)

National Household Education Survey:  Adult Civic Involvement in the United
States, February 1997.  (19 pages, NCES-97-906)

HOUSEHOLD USE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Use of Public Library Services by Households in the United States:  1996,
March 1997.  (12 pages,  NCES 97-446)

PARENT/FAMILY INVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION

* Father's Involvement in Their Children's School,  October 1997.  (117
pages, NCES 98-091)

Factors Associated with Fathers' and Mothers' Involvement in Their
Children's Schools, April 1998.  (2 pages, NCES 98-122)

How Involved are Fathers in Their Children's Schools?, April 1998.  (2
pages, NCES 98-120)

Students Do Better when Their Fathers are Involved at School,  April 1998. 
(2 pages, NCES 98-121)

Nonresident Fathers can Make a Difference in Children's School Performance,
June 1998 (2 pages, NCES 98-117)

Parents' Reports of School Practices to Involve Families, October 1996.  (14
pages, NCES 97-327)



EARLY CHILDHOOD/SCHOOL READINESS

* Characteristics of Children's Early Care and Education Programs:  Data
from the 1995 National Household Education Survey, June 1998.  (160 pages,
NCES 98-128)

The Elementary School Performance and Adjustment of Children Who Enter
Kindergarten Late or Repeat Kindergarten: Findings from National Surveys,
December 1997. (70 pages, NCES 98-097)

Approaching Kindergarten:  A Look at Preschoolers in the United States,
October 1995.  (72 pages,  NCES 95-280)

* Child Care and Early Education Program Participation of Infants, Toddlers,
and Preschoolers, October 1995. (11 pages, NCES 95-824)

Family-Child Engagement in Literacy Activities:  Changes in Participation
Between 1991 and 1993, December 1994.  (9 pages, NCES 95-689)

Access to Early Childhood Programs for Children At Risk, May 1994.  (112
pages, NCES 93-372)

Readiness for Kindergarten: Parent and Teacher Beliefs, September 1993.  (10
pages, NCES 93-257)

Profile of Preschool Children's Child Care and Early Education Program
Participation, February 1993.  (38 pages, NCES 93-133)

Home Activities of 3- to 8-year-olds, January 1992.  (8 pages, NCES 92-004)

Experiences in Child Care and Early Childhood Programs of First and Second
Graders, January 1992. (6 pages, NCES 92-005)

SCHOOL SAFETY AND DISCIPLINE

Student Reports of Availability and Peer Approval of the Use of Tobacco,
Alcohol and Other Drugs at School:  1993, June 1997.  (19 pages, NCES 97-279)

Student Victimization at School, October 1995.  (8 pages, NCES 95-204)

Student Strategies to Avoid Harm at School, October, 1995.  (7 pages, NCES
95-203)

Gangs and Victimization at School, July 1995.  (2 pages, NCES 95-740)

Use of School Choice, June 1995.  (2 pages, NCES 95-742R)

Parent and Student Perceptions of the Learning Environment at School,
September 1993.  (17 pages,  NCES 93-281)




ADULT EDUCATION

Adults' Participation in Work-Related Courses:  1994-1995, November 1998. 
(16 pages, NCES 98-309)

Participation of Adults in English as a Second Language Classes, May 1997. 
(19 pages, NCES 97-319)

Participation of Adults in Basic Skills Courses, March 1997.  (20 pages,
NCES 97-325)

* Forty Percent of Adults Participate in Adult Education Activities:
1994-95, November 1995.  (12 pages, NCES 95-823)

Adult Education: Employment-Related Training, May 1994.  (29 pages, NCES
94-471)

Adult Education: Main Reasons for Participating, June 1993.  (8 pages, NCES
93-451)

TECHNICAL REPORTS

An Experiment in Random-Digit-Dial Screening, December 1997 (49 pages, NCES
98-255)

* An Overview of Response Rates in the National Household Education Survey: 
1991, 1993, 1995, and 1996, June 1997. (64 pages, NCES 97-948)

Feasibility of Conducting Followup Surveys in the National Household
Education Survey, June 1997 (23 pages, NCES 97-335)

* Overview of the National Household Education Survey:  1991, 1993, 1995,
and 1996.  May 1997.  (35 pages, NCES 97-448)

Measuring Participation in Adult Education, May 1997.  (50 pages, NCES
97-341)

* Reinterview Results for the School Readiness and School Safety and
Discipline Components of the National Household Education Survey 1993, May
1996.  (75 pages, NCES 97-339)

Adjusting for Coverage Bias Using Telephone Service Interruption Data from
the National Household Education Survey 1993, December 1996.  (34 pages,
NCES 97-336)

Use of Cognitive Laboratories and Recorded Interviews in the National
Household Education Survey, September 1996.  (36 pages, NCES 96-332)

Overview of the NHES Field Test, July 1992.  (44 pages, NCES 92-099)

Telephone Undercoverage Bias of 14- to 21-year-olds and 3- to 5-year-olds,
July 1992.  (42 pages, NCES 92-101)

Multiplicity Sampling for Dropouts in the NHES Field Test, July 1992.  (23
pages, NCES 92-102)

Proxy Reporting of Dropout Status in the NHES Field Test, July 1992.  (29
pages, NCES 92-103)

Effectiveness of Oversampling Blacks and Hispanics in the NHES Field Test,
July 1992.  (20 pages, NCES 92-104)

WORKING PAPERS

	Working papers related to NHES:96

Design, Data Collection, Interview Timing and Data Editing in the 1996
National Household Education Survey, November 1997.  (95 pages, NCES Working
Paper 97-35)

Reinterview Results for the Parent and Youth Components of the National
Household Education Survey, December 1997. (47 pages, NCES Working Paper
97-38)

Undercoverage Bias in Estimate in Characteristics of Households and Adults
in the 1996 National Household Education Survey, December 1997.  (29 pages,
NCES Working Paper 97-39)

Unit and Item Response, Weighting, and Imputation Procedures  in the 1996
National Household Education Survey, December 1997. (86 pages, NCES Working
Paper 97-40)

	Working papers related to NHES:95

*Estimation of Response Bias in the NHES:95 Adult Education Survey, June
1996.  (41 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-13)

* The 1995 National Household Education Survey:  Reinterview Results for the
Adult Education Component, June 1996.  (48 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-14)

* Undercoverage Bias in Estimates of Characteristics of Adults and 0- to
2-Year-Olds in the 1995 National Household Education Survey, December 1996. 
(22 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-29)

* Comparison of Estimates from the 1995 National Household Education Survey,
December 1996.  (75 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-30)

* Unit and Item Response, Weighting, and Imputation Procedures  in the 1995
National Household Education Survey, February 1997 (107 pages, NCES Working
Paper 97-06)

* Design, Data Collection, Interview Timing and Data Editing in the 1995
National Household Education Survey, March 1997.  (95 pages, NCES Working
Paper 97-08)

* Adult Education Course Coding User's Manual, June 1997.  (196 pages, NCES
Working Paper 97-19)

* Adult Education Course Code Merge Files User's Guide, June 1997.  (50
pages, NCES Working Paper 97-20)


	Working papers related to NHES:93

Telephone Coverage Bias and Recorded Interviews in the 1993 National
Household Education Survey, February 1997.  (89 pages, NCES Working Paper
97-02)

Design, Data Collection, Interview Timing and Data Editing in the 1993
National Household Education Survey, February 1997.  (53 pages, NCES Working
Paper 97-04)

Unit and Item Response Rates, Weighting and Imputation in the 1993 National
Household Education Survey, February 1997.  (54 pages, NCES Working Paper
97-05)

Comparison of Estimates from the 1993 National Household Education Survey,
December 1997.  (75 pages, NCES Working Paper 97-34)

QUESTIONNAIRE WORKING PAPERS

* 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96) Questionnaires: 
Screener, Household and Public Library, Parent and Family Involvement in
Education and Civic Involvement, Youth Civic Involvement and Adult Civic
Involvement, August 1997.  (60 pages, NCES Working Paper 97-25)

1991 and 1995 National Household Education Survey Questionnaires:  NHES:91 
Screener, NHES:91 Adult Education, NHES:95 Basic Screener, and NHES:95 Adult
Education, February 1997.  (80 pages, NCES Working Paper 97-03)

* 1995 National Household Education Survey (NHES:95) Questionnaires: 
Screener, Early Childhood Program Participation, and Adult Education,
October 1996.  (112 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-22)

* (1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93) Questionnaires: 
Screener, School Readiness, and School Safety and Discipline, October 1996. 
(66 pages, NCES Working Paper 96-21)

* 1991 National Household Education Survey (NHES:91) Questionnaires: 
Screener, Early Childhood Education, and Adult Education, October 1996.  (58
pages, NCES Working Papers 96-20)

DATA SETS

* NHES:91/93/95/96 CD-ROM.  (NCES 97-426) 	The NHES:91/93/95/96 CD-ROM
contains  the following data files:  1991 Adult Education, Adult file; 1991
Adult Education, Course file; 1991 Preprimary file; 1991 Primary file; 1993
School Readiness file; 1993 School Safety and Discipline file; 1995 Adult
Education file; 1995 Early Childhood Program Participation file; 1996
Parent/Family Involvement in Education and Parent Civic Involvement file;
1996 Youth Civic Involvement file; 1996 Adult Civic Involvement file; and
1996 Household and Public Library file. The CD-ROM contains an Electric
Codebook (ECB) program that allows researchers to examine the variables in
each of the NHES data sets as well as create SAS, SPSS for DOS, and SPSS for
Windows programs that generate an extract data file.  In addition, the Data
Files User's Manuals for each of the NHES components, A Guide to Using Data
from the National Household Education Survey, and the NHES:91/93/95/96
Electronic Codebook User's Guide are included on the CD-ROM.

Appendix C

Examples of open ended questions drawn from the National Household Education
Survey of 1995

D4.		What was the major subject or field of study of your
(CREDENTIAL)?

CRMAJOR1- CRMAJOR3/R		SPECIFY______________________________________



D10.		Let's talk about courses you took as a part-time student in
the past 12 months.  			What (was/were) the name(s) of the
course(s) and what was the general subject 			matter for
each course in (CREDENTIAL) in (SUBJECT)?

CR1CLS1-CR1CLS14/RNAME			SUBJECT__________________
CR2CLS1-CR2CLS14/RNAME			SUBJECT__________________
CR3CLS1-CR3CLS14/RNAME			SUBJECT__________________
CR1SUB1-CR1SUB14/RNAME			SUBJECT__________________
CR2SUB1-CR2SUB14/R CR3SUB1-CR3SUB14/R Questionnaire items that are the same
as D10-F3, G3



E2.		In what trade or craft (are you an/did you) apprentice?

APTRADE/R		SPECIFY_______________________________________



I32.		What (is/was) your job title and what (are/were) your most
important duties? 		[JOB PROBE:  For example, electrical
engineer, stock clerk, typist, or farmer] 		[IMPORTANT DUTY
PROBE:  For example, typing, keeping account book, f		
filing, selling cars, operating printing press, and finishing concrete.]

PROFESS1-PROFESS5/R	IMPORTANT DUTY______________________
DUTIES-DUTIES5/R	JOB TITLE______________________________






 

 




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