The Data File Documentation reports on the procedures and methodologies employed during the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) base year and first follow-up. The document is designed to provide guidance for users of the public-use data as released in Electronic Codebook (ECB) format (NCES 2006-346). Included in the documentation are the following: an overview of the study and its predecessor studies; an account of instrumentation (both assessments and various questionnaires); documentation of the sample design, weighting, design effects, and evaluations of data quality; a summary of the data collection methodology and results, including detailed response rates; a description of data preparation and processing activities; and an overview of data file structure and contents. In addition, there are a number of appendices that provide additional technical details about topics ranging from cross-cohort comparison to issues associated with imputation.
The Field Test report for the ELS:2002/04 first follow-up data collection can be found in Appendix J of the first follow-up data file documentation manual.
