Guide to the American Community Survey for Researchers of Rural Communities: Tackling Margin of Error

• In Event: Educational Research With Diverse National and International Data Sets

Abstract

The American Community Survey (ACS) presents a useful source of community-level data for rural researchers conducting school-community research but not without its difficulties due to the small population sizes of rural communities. This paper addresses the conceptual and technical details of using large-scale datasets for rural research, using Indiana as a case study to illustrate the relationship between the quality of a school (or lack thereof) and the economic vitality of rural communities. Indiana’s Department of Education has a robust accountability system that provides the proxy for school quality, and the ACS provides the economic and demographic data for communities. I offer suggestions to assist researchers in navigating the error associated with small sample sizes of rural communities.

Author

• Kristie LeBeau, Cornell University