The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is an integrated system of surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. The Completions Survey is the survey within this system designed to collect information on the number and types of degrees awarded by U.S. postsecondary institutions and to collect information on the characteristics of degree recipients.
The survey is completed by institutional representatives.
The population consists of all accredited 2- and 4-year postsecondary educational institutions in the United States and its outlying areas.
The IPEDS data normally examined by SRS consist of a census of institutions accredited to award degrees.[1]
Initial data collection for this survey uses mail techniques. Follow-up is conducted by mail and phone. Data are checked for consistency with prior-year responses.
No weighting techniques are used. Since this is a census and imputation is used to correct for unit nonresponse when institutions have previously responded, this only results in a slight underreporting.
Since the data used by SRS are a census of all U.S. institutions, there is no sampling error.
Coverage is believed to be extremely high; accreditation lists are checked each year.
(1) Unit nonresponse - The overall response rates for institutions of higher education have ranged between 85 and 96 percent. Data for nonresponding institutions are imputed from prior-year returns, when available. Adjustments for the remaining nonrespondents are not made in SRS publications.
(2) Item nonresponse - There is some item nonresponse in information reported to NCES. For example, among bachelor's degree recipients in 1997, racial/ethnic data were imputed for 0.6 percent of the white, non-Hispanic recipients at one extreme and for 2.6 percent of non-resident aliens at the other.
A 1979 evaluation of the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) Completions survey that preceded the IPEDS indicated that the major sources of nonsampling error were the differences between the NCES program taxonomy and the taxonomies used by the institutions, classification of double majors and double degrees, operational problems, and survey timing.
Care must be taken in analyzing trend data because it is necessary to modify the degree field taxonomy over time.
Data from this survey are published annually in Detailed Statistical Tables in the series Science and Engineering Degrees and in Science and Engineering Degrees, by Race/Ethnicity of Recipients. Information from the survey is also included in Science and Engineering Indicators, Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering, Foreign Participation in U.S. Academic Science and Engineering, and in special publications such as Blacks in Undergraduate Science and Engineering Education (NSF 92-305).
Data from this survey are available on the SRS Web site and on WebCaspar. Additional electronic access is available through NCES.
Additional information about this survey can be obtained by contacting:
[1] IPEDS also collects information from a sample of technical and vocational institutions.
