Improving the Value of CDS-I for the User Community

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The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal study of a representative sample of U.S. individuals and their families. Beginning in 1968, this is the longest running panel of its kind. The Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the PSID is an extensive data set on children and their families collected with the goal of understanding socio-demographic, psychological, and economic aspects of childhood. The overarching objective of this current NSF-funded project is to augment the entire PSID-CDS data archive by making important improvements to the first wave of CDS, collected in 1997. Most of these improvements will use recent technological advancements in database software, and have already been applied to PSID data and the second wave of CDS data. Specifically, the project will (a) provide richer documentation for CDS-I that takes advantage of recent technological advances in the creation of electronic codebook databases, allowing CDS-I documentation to be integrated into the user-friendly, cutting-edge PSID-CDS-II web-based data archive; (b) create a cross-year variable index that is integrated with and accessible through the online data center, which will streamline variable identification and selection; (c) create Common Core of Data (CCD) linkages and variables for CDS-I children as developed for CDS-II children, allowing users to study characteristics of schools for the CDS children as of 1997; and (d) provide data describing the content of media programming watched by children in CDS-I. The project will contribute broadly to enhancing scientific understanding by making the CDS-I data more usable, accessible, and integrated with the larger PSID and CDS-II databases. The PSID-CDS data are 'intergenerational' in structure with information contained in 33 waves of data from multiple family members, allowing analysts to fully link information on children, their parents, their grandparents, and other relatives. The completion of the project will give researchers and students from a variety of disciplines access to the data. Furthermore, the activities of this project will contribute to the emerging e-science cyber infrastructure by providing additional data tools and expertise via the Internet (www.psidonline.isr.umich.edu) to researchers so that access to a highly complex data archive is achieved without regard to geographic location. This open access will lead to greater long-term economic benefits, better-informed government decision-makers, and accelerated progress in science itself (see Science, March 19, 2004). Lastly, the data processing, documentation, and dissemination activities are pedagogical tools that can be used to teach research concepts to a diverse audience. They have been used to teach undergraduate and even high school students, as well as academic researchers from all over the world.