Methods Used by SDA 4 for Computing
Standard Errors for Complex Samples


CONTENTS


Specifying the Sample Design

The sample design is specified for each study when the SDA dataset is defined in the "Configure Datasets" section of the SDA Manager. On that page the archive manager may specify a stratum variable and/or a cluster variable for each dataset. (Alternatively, this information can be imported from a HARC file when the SDA database is initialized.)

There are three possible specifications:

Each of these three specifications results in standard errors being computed differently.


Methods Specific to Certain Programs


Domains and subclasses of the sample

When analyzing data, we often need to calculate statistics for subgroups of the sample, in addition to calculating statistics for the sample as a whole.


Differences between SDA and other programs


References

For a more detailed technical treatment of the standard error specifications for the SDA programs, see the following documents: