Resources for International Comparative Analysis: The European Social Survey

1. 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

2. About the ESS • Cross-national biennial time-series • Academically-driven • Multiple funding sources • 18,300 registered data users

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

4. Participating countries

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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’

10. 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/

11. NESSTAR: example table

12. 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

13. ESS Bibliography: search page

14. 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)

15. http://essedunet.nsd.uib.no/

16. 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 Schwartz’s 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

17. 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/

19. 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

20. 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

21. Advantages of ESS EduNet Closeness to data Easy to use Research practice

22. Any Questions? ess@city.ac.uk Thank you!