Dear all,
I understand that the dataset spcourses includes spells of professional training. However, I don’t understand how the spcourses questionnaire is ‚activated‘. Is there a specific filter question the respondents answers to then access questions on courses? I ask because I cannot find a question asking something like „have you attended any course in the last 12 months“. Additionally, is there a German version of such a question?
Thanks a lot.
Giovanni
Hello Giovanni,
this question isn’t that easy to answer. One reason for this is that within the survey, auxiliary variables control the input filters for the course module, which are then not published in the final ScientificUseFile. For this reason, these variables are also not included in the English survey instruments, as only the German versions were used to program the survey, and a translation of these questions was therefore never necessary. However, this information is still included in the German field instruments. You can download those from the NEPS website.
For example, in the German version of the field instruments from Wave 15 (NEPS_SC6_SurveyInstruments_Field_w15_de.pdf), you’ll find a complete overview of the input filters (–ef:) that control the course module on page 665. In the left column of these documents, you’ll find the (internal) question number, here 35100Z. The input filters, in turn, reference the question numbers of the corresponding auxiliary variables in the other modules. Within the employment module, you can search for question number 26147 and then find the variable „etfwb“ on page 410, which can be found under the name ts23235 (–md:) in the spEmp data set in the SUF. You can proceed analogously with the other input filters, and I hope this clarifies how the control for the course module worked.
Best regards
Benno Schönberger