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Support #1650

yp2uni missing/inapplicable/don't know categories

Added by Alessandro Ferrara about 2 years ago. Updated about 2 years ago.

Status:
Feedback
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Understanding Society User Support Team
Category:
Data inconsistency
Start date:
02/04/2022
% Done:

50%

Description

I am working with the yp2uni variable from the youth questionnaire and I see some incongruence in the missing values.

In Wave 1, there is only the "missing (-9)" category and an "Inapplicable (-8) category. I am not sure what the "Inapplicable" refers to here, as it does not seem like the population to which the question is asked is somehow limited. Moreover, in the questionnaire there is a "I don't know" option, which is not shown in the final data. Might this correspond to the "Inapplicable"?

In Waves 2-5, 7, 10 and 11, there is no "Inapplicable" anymore and just a "Missing" category. Have the two been merged together?

In waves 6,8 and 9, there are categories for both "Inapplicable", "Missing" and "Don't know". This seems like the most comprehensive and correct coding of the data, although it is still unclear what "Inapplicable" refers to in this case.

This issue is quite important for my reserach because an "I don't know" is clearly very different from a missing or an inapplicable response. Moreover, understanding who the "Inapplicable" respondents are is useful to understand which population I am studying here.

Thank you for your help!

#1

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 2 years ago

  • Status changed from New to In Progress
  • % 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.

We aim to respond to simple queries within 48 hours and more complex issues within 7 working days. While we will aim to keep to this response times due to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) related situation it may take us longer to respond.

Best wishes,
Understanding Society User Support Team

#2

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 2 years ago

  • % Done changed from 10 to 20

Dear Alessandro,

Thank you for pointing out these issues. In waves 6,8 and 9 the -8 "inapplicable" category was assigned to children who answered "Get a full-time job" to the earlier yplvsc2do question (no.35), therefore where outside of the universe for the yp2uni according to the questionnaire. Take wave 9 as an example - when you look at the pdf of the questionnaire, you can see that there is a red arrow pointing to 37, this is a filtering instruction sending children directly to the question no. 37. However, you are right that the coding of this question is inconsistent across waves, because in other waves -8 and -9 have been indeed merge together. We will investigate why this is the case and we will also look into why -1 "don't know" appears only in waves 6,8,9.

Best wishes,
Understanding Society User Support Team

#3

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 2 years ago

  • Category set to Data inconsistency
  • Assignee set to Understanding Society User Support Team
#4

Updated by Alessandro Ferrara about 2 years ago

Dear Understanding Society User Support Team,

Thank you for your answer. So if I understand correctly, the "Inapplicable" could be effectively considered as a "No" answer to the question "Would you like to go on to do further full-time education at a college or University after you finish school?".

Looking forwards to your answer regarding the remanining waves

Best,
Alessandro

#5

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 2 years ago

Dear Alessandro,

So, just to make sure, your question is whether one can interpret answering 1 "Get a full time job" to yplvsc2do (leading to "Inapplicable" on yp2uni) as answering "No" to yp2uni?

Best wishes,
Understanding Society User Support Team

#6

Updated by Alessandro Ferrara about 2 years ago

Dear Support team,

Thank you for your help

To your question "So, just to make sure, your question is whether one can interpret answering 1 "Get a full time job" to yplvsc2do (leading to "Inapplicable" on yp2uni) as answering "No" to yp2uni?

Yes, I am asking if answering "YEs" to question "yplvsc2do", leads to an "inapplicable" response to "yp2uni", then it can be considered as a "No" answer de facto?.

But, more importantly, I would like to know what happened to the "I don't know" answers from all waves other than 6,8 and 9?

Best,
Alessandro

#7

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 2 years ago

  • Status changed from In Progress to Feedback
  • % Done changed from 20 to 50

Hi Alessandro,

1) Such an interpretation is possible as the yp2uni questions reads “after you finish school?”, so getting a full-time job in a way excludes that. However, we leave the interpretation to users in this case (e.g., it might happen that someone changes their mind, their start a job, but go back to education and eventually go to university),
2) In other waves 1, -8, and -9 were all recoded to -9. This is indeed inconsistency and we are planning to change this in the next data release. At the moment, you can either a) do the same recoding in waves 6,8,9 so -1,-8,-9 -> -9 or b) apply the filter and change some -9s to -8s. However, in b) the information about “don’t know” answers (-1) would be missing.

Best wishes,
Understanding Society User Support Team

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