Version

Date of Release

• 2012-10-01

Principal Investigator

Hans-Günther Roßbach, National Educational Panel Study, Bamberg (Germany)

Citation

If you publish with NEPS data, it is mandatory to quote the following reference:

Blossfeld, H.-P., Roßbach, H.-G., & von Maurice, J. (Eds.). (2011). Education as a lifelong process: The German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 14. (Full text)

In addition, publications using data from this release must include the following acknowledgement:

This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort 3 – 5th Grade, doi:10.5157/NEPS:SC3:1.0.0. From 2008 to 2013, NEPS data were collected as part of the Framework Programme for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As of 2014, the NEPS survey is carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) at the University of Bamberg in cooperation with a nationwide network.

Summary

The lower secondary level plays a connecting role between elementary school and the general or vocational upper secondary level (or directly entering the job market). Nevertheless, important questions could not be clearly and conclusively answered yet because of the lack of appropriate data. This pertains, for example, to the type of school chosen, to switches to another type of school, or to the grade repetition but also to the central issue of paths through lower secondary level and the transition into upper secondary level.

In this study of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), representatively selected students who attend regular or special needs schools and are willing to participate are questioned and tested in annual waves of studies. For students of the starting cohort of fifth graders, the first survey was carried out in fall/winter 2010, the second survey in winter 2011/12. It is generally intended to sample students in regular and in special needs schools and to follow them up within those originally selected institutions until they leave school or the general school system altogether. After leaving school, these students will be further questioned and tested individually outside the educational institution. The testing and questioning of individuals requiring special education is a challenge because only rudimentary experiences with such measures have been made so far. In addition to the questioning and testing of students, the questioning of context persons such as parents, teachers, and school headmasters is planned. Competence tests cover several domains: language (spelling, reading, and listening comprehension in German, knowledge of first language and English in students with migration background), mathematics, sciences, and metacompetencies (ICT competence and cognitive problem-solving ability).

The central questions of this study include the development of students’ competencies, conditions, and prerequisites of education processes, as well as possible personal consequences for the success and for the future course of education and the integration of students into social networks. The teaching staff and headmaster questionnaires in the participating schools address, for example, data on class size, the composition of the student body, and the school equipment but also questions about lessons in general.

Availability

Data and documents are released for academic research. This release is uniquely identified by one DOI. All data sets of this release are available in different languages (English, German), formats (Stata, SPSS), and degrees of anynomization (download, remote access, and on-site).