National Household Education Survey
The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a national survey administered by NCES.
Design
Frequency
The survey is administered every 3 or 4 years.
Sampling
The survey is administered as two phases.
The first screener phase collects information about the household composition. The target population is non-institutionalized, civilian members of households in the 50 states plus DC. An address list is used to select the sample of about 200,000. Black and Hispanic households are oversampled. An initial invite and several reminders are sent to all selected addresses.
The second phase is a topical survey, and the eligibility criteria can change year to year. Using screener responses, households with eligible children are selected for the second phase, a topical questionnaire. If there are multiple eligible children, the sampling process selects one. Note that the survey is administered to an adult on behalf of the selected child.
Weighting
The base weights reflect unequal stage 1 sampling probabilities.
Base weights are adjusted for screener non-response bias.
A within-household sampling adjustment accounts for unequal probability of selection.
Topical surveys then have separate weights. Principally they reflect the respective target populations. The within-household adjusted weights are further adjusted for non-response and coverage bias of that particular survey's sample and instrument.
Weights are raked to benchmarks from either the ACS or CPS, depending on which has a superior sample size.
History
Prior to the 2012 survey's administration, the sample was selected using RDD.
Also in 2012, the within-household sampling procedure was developed to reduce survey burden. No household can be selected for more than one survey.