What is small area estimation and why is it necessary?
The NAAL and NALS sample sizes are large enough to provide reasonably precise standard survey “direct” estimates of literacy levels for the nation’s adults and for major population groups of interest such as gender and age. In addition, reasonably precise direct estimates of literacy levels can be produced for those states that participated in the SAAL and SALS surveys and for their major subdomains. However, the sample sizes in other states and in jurisdictions within states, such as counties, are not large enough to produce direct estimates of adequate precision (some larger states may have sufficient sample sizes but the survey design does not support state-level estimation). Indeed, some states and most counties in the nation have no sample in the surveys. Nevertheless, policymakers, business leaders, and educators/researchers often need literacy information for states and counties. In response to this need, NCES has used a statistical modeling approach to produce model-dependent e
