Description

Understanding Society collects information about individuals and the households in which they live repeatedly at one year intervals. It includes new and innovative features to allow research across different social science disciplines. To achieve the main goals of this multipurpose survey Understanding Society has a complex sample design and consequently a complex data structure. Thus, analysing the data requires a good understanding of the general structure of the survey, the sample design and the data.

Who is the course for?

This course is aimed at new users of Understanding Society, as well as those who have so far only made use of simpler aspects of the data. It aims to guide the user through the complexities of using this data for cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, and ensure that they can make effective use of the data for their own research projects.

The course is free to attend and includes lunch and refreshments when the venue is the University of Essex.

If I cannot attend this hands-on workshop, can I do the course by myself later?

If you can’t make it to this hands-on workshop, enrol on a MoodleX course. The hands-on workshop and the MoodleX course are exactly the same in terms of the course material. The advantage of the hands-on workshop is that you can ask instructors questions about different aspects of the survey as well as the course materials as you work through those. To enrol on the MoodleX course you need to fill in this online registration form. After registering you will receive an email with an activation link in it. Please use this to activate your MoodleX account. Once you’ve logged in, you can either search for this course or use this link to enrol. If you have any problems please email usersupport@understandingsociety.ac.uk

Course participants will learn about:

• The aims and purpose of Understanding Society and research possibilities using the data

• Understanding Society sample design

• Who is interviewed

• What information is collected

• How the information is collected

• How the information collected is stored (file structure and content)

• How to use the study’s vast online resources

• How to access the data

• How to prepare the data for different types of analysis using the statistical software of your choice (Stata/R/SAS/SPSS)How to use weights for producing population estimates

Course content and format:

The course is a combination of lectures and hands-on sessions in the computer lab. The first day starts with a lecture on Understanding Society covering the topics mentioned aboveand its online resources. This is followed by hands-on-sessions. The second day starts with a lecture on the sample design and an overview of the weights provided, how to select and use the appropriate weight for producing population estimates, and is followed by hands-on sessions. During the hands-on sessions participants are expected to work through a series of worked examples, each highlighting a separate data management task, at their own pace. Instructors with expertise in the survey, data management and the statistical software packages will be present throughout the course to answer questions about the survey, the data and the software. During the hands-on sessions, each worked out example is introduced by the course instructor by a short lecture about what the participant is expected to learn from completing the example.

If the workshop is conducted face-to-face then the hands-on sessions will be in a computer lab. If the workshop is conducted online then the lectures will be conducted via Zoom and during the hands-on sessions the participants will work using their own computers/laptops at their one location but will be able to interact with their tutors via Zoom throughout the sessions.

List of examples to be worked on in the hands on sessions

• UKHLS online documentation in a nutshell

• Matching data from respondents at two waves into wide format

• Matching data from respondents at two or more waves into long format

• Distributing household-level information to respondents

• Aggregating individual-level information to the household

• Working with weights and complex survey design

• How to match information of two household members

• Using “egoalt” files

The worked out examples will be based on Stata, R, SAS and SPSS and participants will need to specify the software they want to use in the registration form.

Please note that this workshop is being planned to be an in-person workshop at the University of Essex Colchester Campus. However, if due to the covid19 pandemic it is not possible to organise the workshop at the University of Essex then it will be virtual. We will inform you if and when we need to make this change of venue.

Course tutors:

The course is currently taught by Understanding Society team members.

Course materials:

Participants will be provided handouts of the presentation slides and worksheets and syntax files (of the software of their choice) accompanying the worked out exercises.