This working paper describes ongoing efforts to create and test variables measuring students' high-school coursetaking in English using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) transcript file. The main goal of this working paper, and a companion working paper, Mathematics, Foreign Language, and Science Coursetaking and the NELS:88 Transcript Data (NCES 2003-01), was to construct measures of coursetaking behavior that extend the historical approach of simply counting credits. Because the level, or the difficulty, of coursework is often ignored in measures of credits completed, the purpose of the research efforts described in these working papers was to create “pipeline” measures that in some fashion capture the breath and depth of students' coursetaking histories.
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