There are two samples on this page.

Sample 1 describes a national questionnaire study about factors influencing whether and where students go to college.

Sample 2 describes a U.S. Census Bureau questionnaire study about marriage and divorce in the U.S.A.

Sample 1

One example of a national questionnaire research project is the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). This research was done by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It is a study of factors affecting education for students leaving elementary school and moving into high school and beyond. A group of eighth graders was identified in 1988. They, along with their parents and teachers, answered questionnaires every two years until 1994.

The sample was created by sampling 1,000 schools of the approximately 40,000 public and private schools in the U.S. with eighth grade students. Of those schools, 24-27 students were randomly chosen. This random sample of nearly 25,000 eighth graders represents the population of approximately 3,000,000 eighth graders in 1988.

The questionnaires over the years have yielded a huge amount of data. You can read research reports at the NELS:88 web site (part of the NCES site).

Here are a some of the results:

1. Parents’ level of college education is related to students’ post-high school education.

Of students whose parents did not go to college, 59% enrolled in further education after high school graduation. The rate of post-high school enrollment increased to 75% for students whose parents had some college education and to 93% for students whose parents had graduated from college.

2. Educational factors affect enrollment in Tier 1 universities. (Tier 1 universities are defined as the best 50 universities ranked by “U.S. News and World Report” in September, 1995.)

— Students who had computers at home when they were in eighth grade were more than twice as likely to enroll in Tier 1 universities as students who did not have computers.

— Students whose GPA was 3.5 or higher were three times more likely to enroll in Tier 1 universities than students with lower GPAs.

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Sample 2

Another example of questionnaire research comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. Every 10 years, the Census does a complete count of the U.S. population. However, the Census Bureau also has many ongoing questionnaire projects using random samples of people in America.

For example, in 1996 the U.S. Census Bureau collected questionnaires from 37,000 randomly chosen households in America. (Survey of Income and Program Participation, SIPP) This sample was representative of the U.S. population at that time. Some questions on the questionnaire were about marital events. The responses tell us about the state of marriage and divorce among American families.

You can read media releases and other research reports at the U.S. Census Bureau web site.

Here are some of the results:

1. About 2.4 million couples marry and 1.2 million couples divorce each year.

2. In 1996, 69% of men and 76% of women ages 15 and older had been married at least once. At the time of the survey, 55% of men and 51% of women ages 15 and older were currently in their first or second marriages.

3. In 1996, 20% of men and 22% of women ages 15 and older had ever been divorced. First marriages that end in divorce last a median of 8 years. Second marriages that end in divorce last a median of 7 years.

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