The data manual is intended to assist your work with the Scientific Use Files.

The release notes entail any main changes in comparison to prior versions. Herein, known bugs and possible solutions regarding the most current data version are noted.

The survey instruments are made available to you in the form of SUF and field versions. The field versions consist of the originally deployed PAPI questionnaires as well as the programming templates for CATI and CAPI interviews. The SUF versions entail additional information, such as the variable names and labels found in the Scientific Use Files as well as the corresponding scheme options. We recommend the SUF version, when working with the data. The ZIP archive contains all of the documents listed below.

In our Downloadcenter you can also view other survey instruments that don't yet have a published Scientific Use File. In order to access the instruments, logging in to the webstie is required. If you are not registered as a NEPS data user and therefore don't have the necessary login credentials, simply contact the Research Data Center.

General overviews and information:

• Competence measures in Starting Cohorts 1 to 6 and variable naming conventions (PDF-en)
• Scaling model and notes on using data from competence tests (PDF-en)
• Linking the data of competence tests across different measurement occasions (PDF-en)

Wave-specific descriptions:

• Wave 3: PDF-de, PDF-en
• Wave 5: PDF-de, PDF-en
• Wave 7: PDF-de, PDF-en
• Wave 9: PDF-de, PDF-en
• Wave 14: PDF-de, PDF-en

Usually for each domain there is a brief description of the construct with sample items, a description of the data, and of the psychometric properties of the test. In the table you will find each of the documents that can be downloaded. (The ZIP archive contains all of the documents listed below. Therein documents in regard to the competence domains as well as overview documents can be found.)

*Until the materials for Starting Cohort 6 (Adults) are published, you can get the documents for Starting Cohorts 3 and 4 here. The description is comprehensive, but the examples are specific to the Starting Cohort.

The semantic data structure file does not contain data. It does, however, contain the metadata found in the Scientific Use Files (e.g., variable names,variable labels and scheme options). It is useful for exploring the data structure without needing any actual data. The ZIP-File contains German and English versions for Stata and SPSS.

Sorted by data sets, the codebook entails frequency counts of all the variables including the corresponding labels. The on-site version of the SUF serves as the basis for the codebook.

The NEPS Glossary provides information about special terminology related to the German educational and occupational system as well as the NEPS-specific terms and abbreviations that are frequently used throughout the NEPS study.

This document describes the used anonymization procedures of the respective data. Here you are also given an overview regarding the opportunity to access sensitive data (Download, Remote, On-Site).

The field reports document the overall data-collection process executed by the survey institute, including the preparation and execution of the survey, the interviewer selection and deployment, tracking and providing incentives to the target persons, the intial contact and the realization of the interviews and tests, etc. The field reports are suppied by the respective survey institutes and are only available in German.

• Wave 2: PDF-de
• Wave 3: PDF-de
• Wave 4: PDF-de
• Wave 5: PDF-de
• Wave 6: PDF-de
• Wave 7: PDF-de
• Wave 8: PDF-de
• Wave 9: PDF-de
• Wave 10: PDF-de
• Wave 11: PDF-de
• Wave 12: PDF-de
• Wave 13: PDF-de
• Wave 14: PDF-de
• Wave 15: PDF-de

The interview manuals is the basis for the interviewers' training before the computed-supported interviews were conducted. In particular, it describes the interview process as well as the content of each of the questionnaire modules.

• Wave 2: PDF-de
• Wave 3: PDF-de
• Wave 4: PDF-de
• Wave 5: PDF-de
• Wave 6: PDF-de
• Wave 7: PDF-de
• Wave 8: PDF-de
• Wave 9: PDF-de
• Wave 10: PDF-de
• Wave 11: PDF-de
• Wave 12: PDF-de
• Wave 13: PDF-de
• Wave 14: PDF-de CATI, PDF-de CAPI
• Wave 15: PDF-de

The documents for weighting and sample stratification include information regarding the sampling process and the construct principles of weighting variables. It also provides insight towards a correct use of the weights found in the Scientific Use Files.

• Waves 2-6: PDF-en
• Waves 7-9: PDF-en
• Wave 10: PDF-en
• Wave 11: PDF-en
• Wave 12: PDF-en
• Wave 13: PDF-en
• Wave 14: PDF-en
• Wave 15: PDF-en

The NEPS Survey Paper No. 89 documents the relevant sample parameters for the Corona survey from May/June 2020, describes details on selectivity and presents the response propensity models for participation in this additional survey and the weighting procedure including post-stratification: PDF-en

The report gives a comprehensive overview of the underlying derivation processes for the derived educational variables. These are ISCED-97, CASMIN and Years of Education.

Regional structural information can be merged to our data on-site. Regional data is available from Microm and infas. These documentations describe all regional levels, structural characteristics, and how to use the data.

• Microm: PDF-de, PDF-en
• RegioInfas (infas geodaten): PDF-en

This document describes the most important steps and functions of the infas check module for retrospectively reported life courses (“x module”) in computer-based interviews. The document suppied by the infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences GmbH is only available in German.

The NEPS Survey Paper No. 22 by K. Rompczyk and C. Kleinert describes the structure and the editing process of an episode-splitted file, which allows data users to generate a simplified biography dataset of NEPS Starting Cohort 6 “Adult Education and Lifelong Learning”.

TrueTales View is a MS Access database application developed by Ralf Kuenster (WZB) for graphically representing life course data. The manual describes functions of the tool and provides information on how to get access to it.