The European Values Study and its metadata: stock taking and the future

Ruud Luijkx

Tilburg University

The Netherlands

European Values Study

A longitudinal and international comparative survey research project on basic human values

www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu

Short history

• First wave: 1981

• European Countries: France, Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Iceland

• Non-European Countries: Canada, USA

Original Research Questions

• Do Europeans share common values?• Are values changing?• Do Christian values continue to permeate

European life and culture?• Is a coherent alternative meaning system

replacing that of Christianity?• What are the implications for European

unity?

EVS questionnaire subjects

• religion

• morality

• politics

• society

• family & marriage

• sexuality

• education

• work

• leisure time

Second/Third wave 1990/199

• Modified replication of 1981

• More countries from Western and Eastern Europe

• In 1999 also new issues: • solidarity• social capital• democracy• work ethics

Fourth wave 2008

• Largely a replication of 1999• All countries of Europe (with more than

100,000 inhabitants)• Progress of the fieldwork• More emphasis on high quality socio-

demographic (background) variables• High quality translation of the

questionnaires

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Our colleagues: the World Values Survey

• “third wave” (1995-1998)

• “fourth wave” (2000-2004)

• “fifth wave”(2005-2007)

• Overlap in the questionnaire is about 60%

Data dissemmination

• Through data archives

• GESIS is the primary data archive for EVS

• 1981 originally at UKDA

• 1990 at DANS

• For/in 1981/1990 only data and questionnaires (later in pdf-format)

(Meta) data 1999• GESIS Codebook explorer• GESIS ZACAT

– Study description• Bibliographic citation

• Study scope

• Methodology and processing

• Data-access

– Data Files Description

(Meta) data 1999—GESIS ZACAT• Comparative questions (master questionnaire) with

1981 and 1990• Original question wordings for all languages:

question texts, answer categories, and show cards of the questionnaires

• Explanatory notes concerning differences between national and master questionnaire, difficulties arising from translation, and additional questions used in the national questionnaires were added.

• http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp

Harmonising different waves• In 2006 a harmonised data set was released after

(post hoc) harmonisation of all Value Surveys since 1981 (ASEP/JDS, EVS-Tilburg, GESIS)

• Goals:– Make all Value Surveys available on line – Facilitate simple analyses– Disseminate all documentation

• Web sites where data are available:– EVS www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu – ASEP/JDS www.jdsurvey.net – WVS (Enter from WVS )

• ALSO HARMONISING META DATA

Meta data 2008

• Improved presentation on ZACAT– Including more notes from the translation

process

• DatapluS: Repositories for Enhanced Survey Publications

DatapluSFunded by Surf FoundationCreate 2 subject repositories with enriched publications

• Besides European Values Study (EVS), also Dutch Parliamentary Election Study

• Enriched with:– Syntax codes of constructs, concepts– Links to (meta) data (at the variable level)—persistent

identifier issue

Work Packages• 1,2: INPUT: Enhanced Publications (EVS, DPES)• 3: A Sustainable Library Infrastructure for

Enhanced Publications: LIS (Tilburg University) Library Twente (presentation Thomas Place)

• 4: DDI 3.0 Enhanced Publication Editor: CentERdata (Tilburg University); presentation Bart van Nieuwburg

• 5: Linking to (Meta) Data Stored in Data Archives (GESIS, DANS)

Deliverables• 2 subject repositories with enriched

publications

• Enhanced Publication Editor

• Infrastructure compatible with existing repository systems

Future issues Make more meta data available in a more

coordinated way Use version control of (meta)data—also cross

linking data releases Further integration of publications and data Integration of data from different sources

(macro indicators)