The 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96) was a random digit dial telephone survey of households that was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat, Inc. The NHES:96 included two topical survey components, "Parent and Family Involvement in Education," (PFI) which collected data about family involvement in children's schooling, and "Civic Involvement," (CI) which collected data about participation in civic activities and attitudes toward government. This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the four public release data files of the NHES:96: the Household and Library File, the PFI and CI files, the Youth Civic Involvement file, and the Adult Civic Involvement File. Volume I contains information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures. Volumes II through V each contain a guide to the data file and its codebook, a discussion of data considerations and anomalies, and, in appendixes, the file layout and additional information. This volume contains the following sections: (1) "Introduction"; (2) "Description of Data Collection Instruments"; (3) "Sample Design and Implementation"; (4) "Data Collection Methods and Response Rates"; and (5) "Data Preparation." An appendix presents the screener for the four files. (Contains 1 figure, 17 tables and 25 references.) (SLD)