NZCER was asked by the NZ Principals' Federation (NZPF) to provide quality assurance on Murray Neighbour's analysis of the NZPF's national survey of all primary and intermediate schools, undertaken in November 2001.  The aim of this survey was to establish New Zealand figures for student transience levels, in the light of growing sector concern about the relationship between student transience and achievement, and the impact of student transience for schools (Lee, 2000; Neighbour, 2001).

NZPF provided NZCER with all the individual replies received from schools, which were then data-entered before being analysed in terms of school size, decile, region, and type.