Feasibility of Conducting Followup Surveys in the National Household Education Survey. Technical Report / J. Michael Brick and Others.

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

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