The research methodology of a study to assess 1980-1981 award accuracy of the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (BEOG), or Pell grants, is described. The study is the first stage of a three-stage quality control project. During the spring of 1981 a nationally representative sample of 305 public, private, and proprietary institutions was visited. The financial aid administrator at each institution was interviewed and asked to describe the institution's BEOG processing procedure. At each institution, data from a random sample of an average of 14 financial aid records were reviewed and transcribed. In all, data were collected from 4,500 BEOG recipient records. These recipients and their parents were interviewed, asked about their general experiences in dealing with the application process, and asked to provide documents to verify the income and household information on their application forms. In addition, data were collected from the Internal Revenue Service, tax assessors, and financial institutions as additional verification of the information that the students in the survey placed on their applications. Information is presented concerning the rationale and specific procedures used to select a statistically representative sample of institutions and students; the response rates for the survey of students and parents; institutional and student/parent field data collection; and procedures used to compile, edit, and convert the survey data to machine-readable tapes used for statistical analysis. Attention is also directed to the methodology and procedures used in the special analysis of BEOG application processor data entry error. (SW)