Resources for International Comparative Analysis:

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Resources for International Comparative
Analysis The European Social Survey
Caroline Roberts, Gillian Eva, Atle
Jåstad Centre for Comparative Social
Surveys City University, London NSD, Norway
ESRC Research Methods Festival, St Catherine's
College, Oxford, 02 July 2008
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About the ESS

• Cross-national biennial time-series
• Academically-driven
• Multiple funding sources
• 18,300 registered data users

Round Fieldwork year No. of countries
1 2002 22
2 2004 26
3 2006 25
4 2008 25 (so far)
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Three main aims

1. To produce rigorous trend data about changing
   social values across Europe
2. To improve the reliability of quantitative
   cross-national measurement in Europe
3. To advance the cause of social indicators and
   attitudinal measures

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Participating countries
Austria France Lithuania Slovenia
Belgium Germany Luxembourg Spain
Bulgaria Greece Netherlands Sweden
Cyprus Hungary Norway Switzerland
Croatia Iceland Poland Turkey
Czech Republic Ireland Portugal UK
Denmark Israel Romania Ukraine
Estonia Italy Russia
Finland Latvia Slovakia
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The Questionnaire

• Core question topics
• Trust in institutions
• Political engagement
• Socio-political values
• Multi-level governance
• Moral social values
• Social exclusion
• National, ethnic, religious identity
• Well-being, health, security

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Rotating Modules

• Round 1
• Immigration
• Citizenship, engagement and democracy
• Round 2
• Family, work and well-being
• Economic morality
• Health and care-seeking
• Round 3
• Timing of the life course
• Subjective well-being
• Round 4
• Experiences and expressions of ageism
• Welfare attitudes in Europe

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Methodological Advances

• Organisational structure
• Translation
• Sampling
• Fieldwork procedures and timing
• Response targets and enhancements
• Progress monitoring
• Contextual and event data
• Methodological research
• Transparency
• Access for all

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ESS Resources

• For background information documentation
• ESS home website
• www.europeansocialsurvey.org
• For ESS data
• ESS Data Archive website
• http//ess.nsd.uib.no
• For training in data analysis
• ESS EduNet
• http//essedunet.nsd.uib.no

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ESS Data Archive

• Free immediate access quick registration
• Data documentation organised by round
• Survey documentation including information about
  sampling, weighting and population statistics
• Fieldwork documents questionnaires showcards,
  etc.
• Fieldwork summary response rates, fieldwork
  dates, sample size, and national deviations
• Data download integrated country files
• Contextual data indices including macro
  event data
• Cumulative data file now available for rounds 1-3
• Online-browsing analysis using Nesstar
  Webview
• ESS Bibliography
• ESS EduNet

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Other resources NESSTAR

• NESSTAR
• Online browsing and analysis
• For use with the full ESS datasets or the
  specially prepared ESS EduNet data
• Options
• 1. Description of study, datafile, variables,
  etc.
• 2. Table create frequency tables and crosstabs
• 3. Analysis perform regression analysis
• http//nesstar.essedunet.nsd.uib.no/webview/
• http//ess.nsd.uib.no/webview/

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NESSTAR example table
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Other resources ESS Bibliography

• ESS Bibliography
• Provides information about publications based on
  the European Social Survey
• Can search by author, keyword, year, country,
  publication type
• Authors submit information about their own
  publication

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ESS Bibliography search page
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Other resources ESS EduNet

• Internet-based analysis training programme aimed
  at facilitating and enriching access to empirical
  data in the social sciences
• The resource is developed for use in higher
  education
• A hands on introduction to social science data
  analysis
• Combining theory, data and methodology
• Connect text (written by distinguished
  researchers) with data (high quality ESS data)

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http//essedunet.nsd.uib.no/
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Topics
Social and Political Trust (using ESS round 1
data) Ken Newton 2 theories of the origin of
social trust, outlines the relationship
between political and social trustHuman Values
(using ESS round 1 data) Shalom Schwartz
Schwartzs theory on human values, shows how
values can be used as both dependent and
independent variablesRegression (using ESS
round 2 data) Odd Gåsdal Hands on
introduction to analysing cross-sectional survey
data using linear regression methodsFamily,
Gender and Work (using ESS round 2 data) Noah
Lewin-Epstein and Haya Stier Different ways in
which survey data are used in comparative
research, uses these to examine the family-work
connection

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Topics chapter navigation

• Each topic is divided into several chapters
• Each chapter is again divided into several short
  pages
• Each chapter contains exercises of varying
  degrees of difficulty
• Chapters take around 1 hour to complete

http//essedunet.nsd.uib.no/
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(No Transcript)
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Data

• Statistical Data
• Extracts from the ESS rounds 1 and 2 and a data
  set with country level information
• Available for online analysis in Nesstar WebView
  (with correlation)
• Or to download in different formats
• Methodological glossary
• Short description of some key concepts. Each
  concept is followed by a link to Wikipedia and an
  online statistical textbook

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Other resources

• About
• Short description of the ESS project and ESS
  EduNet

• User guide
• Help pages on technical requirements, NSDstat,
  weighting, etc.
• An introduction on how to analyse data online - a
  useful starting point for those with no
  experience in statistical analysis

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Advantages of ESS EduNet
Closeness to data
Easy to use
Research practice
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Any Questions?
ess_at_city.ac.uk

• Thank you!