Support #1139
Polytechnic vs university degree
100%
Description
We would like to use the Understanding Society data to study educational choices in the UK population.
As you probably know, the Further and Higher Education act of 1992 allowed former polytechnics to award tertiary education degrees that before could be awarded only by traditional universities.
We imagine that when a UK respondent is asked in, say, 2010 whether he/she has a college degree, he/she answers yes in both cases (polytechnic and traditional university degree), even if he/she obtained the degree before 1992.
We have seen that in the BHPS, the variable ba_fetype in wave 1 contains the option “polytechnic”. But we could not find the same information in the Understanding Society waves. The only variable we could find was a_edtype in wave 1 of UKHLS, which lists fe college, he college and university.
Could you please tell us if in the Understanding Society data there is a way to identify whether a tertiary education degree comes from a polytechnic or from a traditional university, both before and after 1992.
We would really appreciate for any advice you might have on this question.
Andrea Ichino and Nurfatima Jandarova
Updated by Stephanie Auty about 5 years ago
- Status changed from New to In Progress
- Assignee set to Stephanie Auty
- % Done changed from 0 to 10
- Private changed from Yes to No
Many thanks for your enquiry. The Understanding Society team is looking into it and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer
Updated by Stephanie Auty about 5 years ago
- Assignee changed from Stephanie Auty to Nurfatima Jandarova
- % Done changed from 10 to 50
Dear Andrea Ichino and Nurfatima Jandarova,
We don't collect data on the type of university attended. At Wave 5 we did collect the name of the HE institution for those who have attended university since 1995 and have agreed to have their data linked to HESA data. You could use this to categorise the institutions yourself. However, this data is not currently released, and if you are interested I would have to investigate if and under what kind of licence it could be made available.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Updated by Nurfatima Jandarova about 5 years ago
Dear Stephanie,
It would be most helpful if you could tell us about conditions of access to this information.
Thank you!
Stephanie Auty wrote:
Dear Andrea Ichino and Nurfatima Jandarova,
We don't collect data on the type of university attended. At Wave 5 we did collect the name of the HE institution for those who have attended university since 1995 and have agreed to have their data linked to HESA data. You could use this to categorise the institutions yourself. However, this data is not currently released, and if you are interested I would have to investigate if and under what kind of licence it could be made available.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Updated by Stephanie Auty about 5 years ago
Dear Andrea Ichino and Nurfatima Jandarova,
Ok, I will discuss what we can do with the team and get back to you.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Updated by Nurfatima Jandarova about 5 years ago
- Is the BHPS variable
fetype
related to the last institution attended full-time or the one awarding highest degree? - The UKHLS variable
edtype
is only asked from full-time students at the time of the interview. Is there a variable that asks similar questions from other people too? I mean also from those, who have completed their education prior to the wave.
Thank you!
Updated by Stephanie Auty about 5 years ago
- Status changed from In Progress to Feedback
- % Done changed from 50 to 70
Dear Andrea Ichino and Nurfatima Jandarova,
Reading the questionnaires (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/questionnaires) you can see that the wording for bw_fetype is "Please look at this card and tell me which, if any, of these further education institutions you have attended full-time or are attending? IF MORE THAN ONE, CODE MOST RECENT"
Regarding w_edtype, if they are a new entrant we ask what age they left school (and they can report the age, never went, or still at school) in w_school, and if they say report an age (i.e., they have left) we then ask what age they left university/college (again they report the age, never went, or still at), recorded in w_fenow.
If they’re continuing sample and a FT student then they’d get the Educational Aspirations module which should give some indication of the type of establishment they attend. If they are no longer a FT student then they would get the suite of questions in Annual Event History but these are much more about determining spells of FT education and qualifications thereon rather than the establishment attended.
Name of higher education institution has been added to the list of variables to consider producing for a future release. This is likely to be as part of a Special Licence dataset, as it is for school codes.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Updated by Nurfatima Jandarova about 5 years ago
Thank you for the information!
May I just clarify the very last sentence. Does it mean that name of institution (the one you mentioned was collected in Wave 5) is not currently available for download?
Updated by Stephanie Auty about 5 years ago
- % Done changed from 70 to 80
Yes that's right, it is not yet released.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team over 1 year ago
- Category set to Questionnaire content
- Status changed from Feedback to Resolved
- % Done changed from 80 to 100