An estimation of the design effect for the two-stage stratified cluster sampling design

Abstract

Most large-scale educational surveys utilize a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling design. Past findings revealed that the standard errors of Taiwan students' mean performances were slightly larger than other countries'. In response to the request by the institute in charge of TIMSS sampling, this study was launched to derive a formula that could estimate the standard error of population mean prior to conducting a two-stage stratified cluster sampling design. This formula could then be used to select an optimal stratification framework that could reduce the size of standard error to an acceptable level. Its validity was investigated in three subsequent studies. In the first study, standa..