DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09859.v1
title: National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988: First Follow-up (1990)
title: Version 1

description: This data collection presents follow-up data for the
 NATIONAL EDUCATION LONGITUDINAL STUDY, 1988 (ICPSR 9389). The
 base-year study collected information from student surveys and tests
 and from surveys of parents, school administrators, and teachers. It
 was designed to provide trend data about critical transitions
 experienced by students as they leave elementary school and progress
 through high school and postsecondary institutions or the work
 force. This collection provides the first opportunity for longitudinal
 measurement of the 1988 baseline samples. It also provides a point of
 comparison with high school sophomores from ten years before, as
 studied in HIGH SCHOOL AND BEYOND, 1980: A LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF
 STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES (ICPSR 7896). Further, the study
 captures the population of early dropouts (those who leave school
 prior to the end of the tenth grade), while monitoring the transition
 of the student population into secondary schooling. The student
 component (Part 1) collected basic background information about
 students' school and home environments, participation in classes and
 extracurricular activities, current jobs, and students' goals,
 aspirations, and opinions about themselves. The student component also
 measured tenth-grade achievement and cognitive growth between 1988 and
 1990 in the subject areas of mathematics, science, reading, and social
 studies. The school component (Part 3) supplies general descriptive
 information about the educational setting and environment in which
 surveyed students were enrolled. These data were collected from the
 chief administrator of each base-year school and cover school
 characteristics, grading and testing structure, school culture and
 academic climate, program and facilities information, parental
 interactions and involvement, and teaching staff characteristics. The
 dropout component (Part 5) provides data on the process of dropping
 out of school as it occurs from eighth grade on. Variables include
 school attendance, determinants of leaving school, self-perceptions
 and attitudes, work history, and relationships with school personnel,
 peers, and family. The teacher component (Part 7) was administered to
 teachers of follow-up students in four basic subject areas:
 mathematics, science, English, and history. The questionnaire elicited
 teacher evaluations of student characteristics and performance in the
 classroom, curriculum information about the classes taught, teacher
 demographic and professional characteristics, information about
 parent-teacher interactions, time spent on various tasks, and
perceptions of school climate and culture.
description: Two-stage sampling involving the selection of a core group
 of students who were in the eighth-grade sample in 1988 distributed
 across 1,500 schools. In order for this to be a valid probability
 sample of all students currently enrolled in the tenth grade in the
 1989-1990 school year, the sample was "freshened" with students who
 were tenth-graders in 1990 but not in the eighth grade during the
 1987-1988 school year. Base-year students who had dropped out of
school between 1988 and 1990 were subsampled with certainty.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Student Data
DS2: SAS Data Definition Statements for Student Data
DS3: School Data
DS4: SAS Data Definition Statements for School Data
DS5: Dropout Data
DS6: SAS Data Definition Statements for Dropout Data
DS7: Teacher Data
DS8: SAS Data Definition Statements for Teacher Data
DS9: Codebook for Student Data, Volume I
DS10: Codebook for Student Data, Volume II
DS11: Codebook for Dropout Data, Volume I
DS12: Codebook for Dropout Data, Volume II
description: All tenth-grade students in the United States during the 
1989-1990 school year.
description: The codebooks and data collection instruments are
 provided as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format
 was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using
 PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on
 how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided in the codebook
and through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.