Overview 
Survey Design
Survey Quality Measures
Trend Data
Availability of Data
1. Overview (2006 survey cycle) 
a. Purpose
The National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG) provides information about individuals who recently obtained bachelor's or master's degrees in a science, engineering or health field. This group is of special interest to many decision makers, because it represents individuals who have recently made the transition from school to the workplace. It also provides information about individuals attending graduate school. The results of this survey are vital for educational planners within the federal government and in academia. The results are also used by employers in all sectors (education, industry, and government) to understand and predict trends in employment opportunities and salaries in science, engineering and health (SEH) fields for recent graduates and to evaluate the effectiveness of equal opportunity efforts. This survey is also a component of the Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT), which provides data on the total number and characteristics of individuals with training or employment in SEH in the United States.
b. Respondents
Respondents are individuals who recently received bachelor's or master's degrees in an SEH field from a U.S. institution, were living in the U.S. during the survey reference week, and under age 76.
c. Key variables
-
Age
- Citizenship status
- Country of birth
- Country of citizenship
- Disability status
- Educational history (for each degree held: field, level, when received)
- Employment status (unemployed, employed part time, or employed full time)
- Educational attainment of parents
- Financial support and debt amount for undergraduate and graduate degree
- Geographic place of employment
- Marital status
- Number of children
- Occupation (current or previous job)
- Place of birth
- Work activity (e.g., teaching, basic research, etc.)
- Race/ethnicity
- Salary
- Overall satisfaction with principal job
- School enrollment status
- Sector of employment (e.g., academia, industry, government, etc.)
- Sex
- Work-related training
2. Survey Design
a. Target population and sample frame
The target population of the 2006 survey consisted of all individuals:
- Under the age of 76 as of the survey reference date (i.e., born after March 31, 1930)
- Who received a bachelor's or master's degree in science, engineering or health from a U.S. institution between July 1, 2002 and June 30, 2005, and
- Were living in the U.S. during the survey reference week of April 1, 2006.
The NSRCG sample is a two-stage sample, in which a sample of institutions are selected at the first stage and a sample of graduates are selected at the second stage from lists provided by the sampled institutions. The sample frame of schools for inclusion in the first stage is obtained from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) database maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics.
The eligible institutions for the 2006 first stage school sample frame totaled 1,847 U.S. postsecondary institutions that conferred at least one bachelor's or master's degree in SEH fields during the 2003, 2004 and 2005 academic years. The sample frame for the selection of graduates in the second stage totaled 1,137,360 records of graduates obtained from representatives of the institutions selected at the first stage.
b. Sample design
The first stage of the sample was selected with probability proportional to size (PPS), whereby a composite size measure was related to the number of eligible graduates, controlling for sample sizes for domains defined by graduate cohort, degree level, field of major, race/ethnicity, and gender. Institutions that produce relatively large numbers of these degrees are selected with certainty. Other institutions are selected proportionately to a measure of size, which reflects the maximum percentage of graduates in each of the degree fields within level of degree categories. The measure of size is adjusted to increase the probability of selection of institutions with relatively high percentages of graduates in targeted minority groups.
To maintain the efficiency of the school sample, all 300 schools selected for the survey in 2003 were retained for the 2006 sample. The 2003 and 2006 school sampling frames were evaluated for the extent of under- or over-coverage issues. Of the 1,810 schools eligible for the 2003 NSRCG, 88 became ineligible for the 2006 survey, either because they had closed or because they no longer conferred a degree in any of the eligible SEH fields during the eligible academic years. The sum of composite size measures for the 88 schools is negligible, because it represents only about 0.6 percent of the sum of the composite size measures for all schools in the 2003 school frame. In addition, none of the 88 schools was among the 300 schools selected in the 2003 school sample. 125 schools became newly eligible for the survey but these schools were small; their sum of composite measures was merely 0.3 percent of the total frame. The 2006 school sample was the same as used for the 2003 NSRCG.
The second stage sampling consisted of selecting 27,000 bachelor's and master's degree recipients (9,000 for each academic year) who received science, engineering and health degrees from the institutions selected in the first stage. Composite size measures were used to incorporate differential sampling rates for domains subject to over- or under-sampling (Folsom, Potter, and Williams 1987) to satisfy various analytical interests including minority representation in SEH fields. To formulate the composite size measure for institutions, 756 domains were identified and used, which consisted of combinations from the following five variables:
- Three cohorts by degree year (2002–2003, 2003–2004, and 2004–2005 academic years)
- Two degree types (bachelor's and master's)
- 21 major fields of study
- Three race/ethnicity groups (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander, and underrepresented minorities (Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native))
- Two gender groups (male and female)
Institutional-level sample sizes of the graduates were calculated separately for certainty and non-certainty institutions to achieve equal weights within key NSRCG domains across institutions. A proportional allocation of the total sample to 85 certainty institutions resulted in institution-level sample sizes for those institutions from 74 to 291. The noncertainty institutions were implicitly stratified by sorting the list by type of control (public, private), geographic region (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest), and the percentage of degrees awarded in science, engineering, and health fields of study. An equal allocation was applied to assign a sample size of 75 to each of 210 responding non-certainty institutions. The 295 participating schools provided the total sample of 27,000 graduates (19,550 bachelor's and 7,450 master's recipients).
c. Data collection techniques
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. conducted the first stage list data collection for SRS under contract in 2006. The first stage data collection began with contacting the 300 sampled institutions to gain cooperation for obtaining their lists of graduates for academic years 2003, 2004, and 2005. Of the 300 sampled institutions, 295 provided lists of graduates and five did not.
U.S. Census Bureau conducted the second stage survey data collection for sampled individuals for SRS under interagency agreement using two data collection modes — mail and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). Mail was used as the initial mode of data collection, followed by CATI. The 2006 paper questionnaire used in the mail phase of the survey was very similar to the CATI survey instruments. The NSRCG survey instruments were designed to be as similar as possible to the survey instruments used in the 2006 National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) and the 2006 Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) to facilitate combining results into estimates of the total S&E population. A few questions in the NSRCG, however, obtain information of special interest for the population of recent graduates. For example, the NSRCG had more information related to education history than the NSCG or SDR.
Information in the 2006 survey was collected for the reference week of April 1, 2006. Data collection took place between April and November 2006.
d. Estimation techniques
Weights are attached to each responding graduate record to make it simple to estimate characteristics of the population of graduates. The weights were created in the following stages:
- First step was to create an institution base weight that was the inverse of the probability of selecting the institution;
- Institution base weights were then adjusted for nonresponse by creating nonresponse adjustment cells based on institutional control and size;
- Institution weights were further adjusted by a ratio adjustment factor based on the number of graduates in an institution reported in the IPEDS by degree and major;
- Institution weights were then multiplied by the inverse of the probability of selecting the graduate within the institution to form a graduate weight;
- Graduate weights were adjusted for nonresponse by using weighting cells based on year of graduation, degree, and major field of study (foreign address graduates were a separate cell); and
- Graduate nonresponse adjusted weights were further modified to account for the possibility that the graduates could have been selected twice. Graduates who obtained more than one degree during the time period (both a bachelor's and a master's degree, for example) could have been sampled twice.
In addition to creating estimation weights for each graduate, a hot deck imputation procedure was used to estimate missing item values, using responses from other graduates who had similar characteristics (age, major, gender, etc.).
3. Survey Quality Measures
a. Sampling variability
The sample size is sufficiently large that estimates based on the total sample should be subject to no more than moderate sampling error. However, sampling error can be quite substantial in estimating the characteristics of small subgroups of the population. Estimates of the sampling errors associated with various measures are included in the methodology report for the survey and in the basic publications.
b. Coverage
The major source of coverage error is the failure of institutions to identify someone as having received a degree of interest. This failure can arise when institutional records are incorrect (e.g., when incorrect dates for degree receipt are recorded or incorrect degree fields are recorded). It also can arise because of the difficulty in correctly classifying the degree fields granted into the taxonomy that NSF uses to identify whether the degree field is in-scope. In order to minimize the impact of this latter problem, individuals with ambiguous degree fields are included in the sample and eliminated if their responses indicate they are out-of-scope.
c. Nonresponse
(1) Unit nonresponse - The unweighted response rate for the first stage (institution-level response rate) was 98.3 percent; the weighted response rate was 95.4 percent. The unweighted response rate for the second stage (graduates response rate) was 68.2 percent; the weighted response rate was 69 percent.
(2) Item nonresponse - In 2006, the item nonresponse rate for key items (employment status, type of employment, occupation, and primary work activity) ranged from 0.0 percent to 1.8 percent. Other variables, especially those involving sensitive information, had higher nonresponse rates. For example, salary and earned income had item nonresponse rates of approximately 5.6 to 9.7 percent. All missing data were imputed using a hot deck imputation procedure, except for the critical complete items and verbatim text items. Any cases missing the critical complete items were considered as survey nonresponse.
d. Measurement
Several of the key variables in this survey are difficult to measure and thus are relatively prone to measurement error. For example, individuals do not always know the precise definitions of occupations that are used by experts in the field and may thus select occupational fields that are technically incorrect. In order to reduce measurement error, the instrument was pretested, using cognitive interviewing.
As is true for any multi-modal survey, it is likely that the measurement errors associated with the different modalities are somewhat different. This possible source of measurement error is especially troublesome, because the proclivity to respond by one mode or the other is likely to be associated with variables of interest in the survey. To the extent that certain types of individuals may be relatively likely to respond by one mode compared with another, the multi-modal approach may have introduced some systematic biases into the data. A study of differences across modes is being planned to evaluate the data.
To examine the potential nonresponse bias in the NSRCG data, a nonresponse analysis study was conducted for the 2003 NSRCG and the results showed that any detectable differences were properly addressed by the nonresponse weighting adjustments of the survey data [1].
4. Trend Data
There have been a number of changes in the definition of the population surveyed over time. For example, the surveys conducted in the 1980s included individuals receiving bachelor's degrees in fields such as engineering technology; these are excluded from the surveys conducted since 1993. The survey improvements made in 1993 are sufficiently great that SRS staff believe that trend analyses between the data from the surveys conducted during and after 1993 and the surveys in prior years must be performed very cautiously, if at all. Also due to the reference date change in 2006 back to April instead of October used in 2003 survey, some seasonal differences may be reflected when the 2006 data are compared to 2003 data.
5. Availability of Data
a. Publications
The data from this survey are published biennially in Detailed Statistical Tables in the series Characteristics of Recent Science and Engineering Graduates, as well as in several InfoBriefs and Special Reports.
Information from this survey is also included in Science and Engineering Indicators and Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering.
b. Electronic access
Data from this survey are available on the SRS Web site and on the SESTAT Web site. Selected aggregate data are available in public use data files upon request. Access to restricted data for researchers interested in analyzing microdata can be arranged through a licensing agreement.
c. Contact for more information
Additional information about this survey can be obtained by contacting:
Kelly Kang
Senior Analyst
Human Resources Statistics Program
Division of Science Resources Statistics
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965
Arlington, VA 22230
Phone: (703) 292-7796
E-mail: kkang@nsf.gov
Footnotes
[1] See Dajani, Aref and Maples, Jerry. (2005), "The 2003 NSF/RCG Nonresponse Bias Analysis", Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
