Understanding Society User Support

Joe,

Before I answer your question, could you clarify whether the voting intention you study is asked to all in a wave, or only to some following the timing of elections? If the latter, could you give me a few details (if you know) on who specifically is asked, as weighting will depend on that.

Also, can you clarify whether you study each wave separately? And you are not looking in dependency of voting in earlier and later waves, for example?

Thank you,
Olena

Hi Olena,

Voting intention is asked about in the waves 2,3,6,9 and 12. To my understanding, it is asked to all respondents of the self-completion questionnaires and face-to-face interviews under the political engagement question module. The specific wording of the question asked is as follows:

"How likely is it that you will vote in the next general election?" (on a scale of 1-10)

Variable: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/variables/voteintent/

There are also values applied to respondents that cannot vote, or are missing, inapplicable, proxy, refused or don't know. I am considering excluding those who cannot vote (aged <18) from the analysis.

I am studying all waves together through a fixed effects methodology, with dummy variables included for the wave number and cross-wave identifier. To do this, I have created a wave variable that specifies the wave number that corresponds each respondent.

Thanks,

Joe

Joe,

Thank you. Questions 14-16 here https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/working-papers/2024-01.pdf can answer many of your questions.

If you are pooling cross-sectionally, you should use cross-sectional weights. In terms of levels LSOA should be your highest level, followed by psu, individual and time point. Use self-completion cross-sectional weights (preferably scaled) for your analysis. You probably would want to create a new weight variable and assign the relevant weight values to it.

Hope this helps,
Olena

Hi Olena,

Thank you very much for the response, all is clear on the data merging front.

I should clarify that I would be looking at the dependency of voting in earlier and subsequent waves. I have begun going through the online course regarding tailored weights. Specifically, I will be focusing on voting intention in waves 3, 6, and 9, and if you could provide some guidance on how I might approach this, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks as always,

Joe

I would also just like to ask if you would recommend any resources for coding tailored weights in R Studio?

Joe

Joe,

In any software, in including R, you would just need a function for running a logistic regression in order to create a tailored weight. In your situation you may want to start at wave 3, and use the longitudinal wave 3 weight as your base weight.

Hope this helps,
Olena