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Archiving the Scottish Young People’s Survey

Archiving the Scottish Young People’s Survey. Linda Croxford Centre for Educational Sociology Dealing with Data conference, Edinburgh, 26 August 2014. Data on young people’s experiences: 1962 to 2005. Large scale nationally-representative surveys of young Scots aged 15-19

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Archiving the Scottish Young People’s Survey

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  1. Archiving the Scottish Young People’s Survey Linda Croxford Centre for Educational Sociology Dealing with Data conference, Edinburgh, 26 August 2014

  2. Data on young people’s experiences: 1962 to 2005 • Large scale nationally-representative surveys of young Scots aged 15-19 • From schoolto college, university, jobs, training or unemployment • Commissioned by Scottish Government (and its predecessors) to inform policy and practice • Survey questions included: • Factual questions about curriculum/exams, post-16 destinations, • Family background and social class, • Attitudes, aspirations and choices • School context etc

  3. Collaborative Research and the Scottish Education Data Archive • 1975-82 ESRC-funded programme involved “users” (policy makers, teachers etc) in the research process • Relevant questions and support for analysis • Aim to create Scottish Education Data Archive to enable long-term analysis • Evidence-based policy making? • BUT- the aim was ahead of its time - what happened when government changed and funding discontinued?

  4. Changes over time Changes in • Survey design – school-leavers vs. S4 cohorts (1985 onwards) • Questions, data-linkage • Decline in response rates after 1991 • Political/policy change -> reduced funding • Survey organisation: competitive tendering from 1992 • Computers: magnetic tapes, mainframes, EMAS, VAX, Unix Archive • Software: SPSS vs SIR • Experienced staff move-on –> loss of knowledge about the surveys • End of CES -> will all the data be lost?

  5. A warm welcome to Edinburgh DataShare! • Just in time! • Help and technical support to save the data series as an accessible resource for researchers • Save individual datasets and documentation • Create over-arching documentation to facilitate comparisons over time.

  6. Work in progress • Retrieve survey documentation (mostly paper copies) from different locations, choose the most complete version and scan it to create an electronic file. • Retrieve survey datasets from different locations; arrange for conversion of SIR datasets to SPSS files. • Take each survey year in turn, and check the survey data against the documentation –create new datasets that are compatible with documentation. “Data cleaning” where necessary. • Recode school identifier into an anonymous school code – because at the time of each survey the schools were assured that they would not be identified in the data, therefore the school identifier is still confidential data and must be protected. • Transfer the data and documentation to the University of Edinburgh Data Library.

  7. Looking forward • Staff at Edinburgh DataShare are helping with data retrieval, long-term data preservation, liaison with UKDS, and promotion of collection to potential users. • Further curatorial work will create XML datasets marked up in DDI standard metadata, and loading into software designed to offer online exploration, manipulation and visualisation of data, supporting both analysis and learning and teaching purposes

  8. A rich data resource Potential for future analysis of: • Social and educational change • Inequalities in opportunities and career outcomes by gender, social class, area deprivation and school characteristics • The effects of policy changes • The effects of labour market changes on opportunities and career decisions • The effects of school type and context, and how these have changed over time

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