Preserving and Utilizing Historical Data in the PSID

收入动态小组研究（PSID）是世界上持续时间最长的家庭小组调查。PSID拥有40多年来同一家庭及其后代的数据，是世界上基于经验的社会科学研究数据基础设施的基石。通过对经济和社会福利的长期衡量，这项研究使研究人员和政策分析师能够调查社会和行为过程中固有的活力。长长的面板，系谱设计和广泛的内容为科学家提供了一个独特而有力的机会来研究几十年来同一家族的进化和变化。PSID成立之初，大多数调查（包括PSID）都是用纸和铅笔进行的；计算机辅助面试，更不用说网络面试了，还需要几十年的时间。给每个被访者打印一份纸质问卷，采访者将被访者的答案直接写在问卷上。这种方法从1968年到1992年使用，当时开始使用计算机辅助面试。完成的书面访谈被送回密歇根大学进行数据输入，此时数据处理器将创建一个电子文件。对于需要编码的问题的答案——例如，职业或行业——写在仪器上的手写的开放式回答不是输入到电子数据文件中，而是将回答编码成一个分类变量。这些文书的页边空白处还载有采访者所作的大量注释，向数据处理人员提供了关于被采访者所报告的数据的各个方面的重要信息，这些方面是结构化访谈没有捕捉到的。PSID数据处理器广泛使用这些所谓的“边际注释”来生成准确的数据值。即使在今天，PSID数据处理器也会从ISR内存储纸质访谈的安全设施中检索纸质访谈，因为他们试图调和随着时间推移而冲突的信息。面试问题往往很复杂，甚至对面试官和被面试者来说都可能是模棱两可的。因此，为采访者准备了一份指南，以帮助他们解决在对受访者进行调查访谈时出现的任何问题。这些指南以及其他面试官培训材料对研究人员来说很有价值，因为他们可以解释对数据背后问题的回答。PSID已为1997年及以后的面试浪潮提供了这些信息，但在此之前的历史文件尚未扫描/准备和发布。这个项目的目标是保存和增强PSID中历史信息的利用。具体地说，我们建议扫描1968年至1992年所有已完成的纸质问卷，估计包括1 500万页文件。此外，将制作1968年至今所有PSID面试官培训文件的电子版，这些文件将通过PSID网站提供给所有用户。通过将纸质问卷转换为电子格式，该项目的更广泛影响包括保存历史上重要的数据，这些数据目前正在恶化，并有可能很快因退化而无法保存。保存这些数据将使PSID数据处理器访问这些历史信息更容易，成本更低，并使用它来更好地理解和提高数据质量。采访者材料的转换，包括培训材料和“逐个问题”的文件，将使用户容易获得关于具体问题的历史上重要的、特定波的信息和数据收集程序。一个关键的智力价值是促进未来的科学研究-在整个提案中描述-通过保存这些历史数据，以及通过由此产生的可供科学家使用的新变量和信息，不断改进数据质量。

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the world's longest running household panel survey. With over forty years of data on the same families and their descendants, the PSID is a cornerstone of the data infrastructure for empirically-based social science research in the the world. With its long-term measures of economic and social well-being, the study has allowed researchers and policy analysts to investigate the dynamism inherent in social and behavioral processes. The long panel, genealogical design, and broad content provide scientists a unique and powerful opportunity to study evolution and change within the same families over decades.The PSID began in an era when most surveys - including the PSID - were conducted using paper and pencil; computer assisted interviewing, let alone web-based interviewing, was still decades away. A paper questionnaire was printed for each respondent, and the interviewer wrote the respondent's answers directly on the instrument. This approach was used from 1968 to 1992, when computer assisted interviewing was initiated. The completed paper interviews were returned to the University of Michigan for data entry at which time data processors would create an electronic file. For answers to questions that required coding - e.g., occupation or industry - the handwritten open-ended responses written on the instrument were not typed into the electronic data file, but instead the response was coded into a categorical variable. The instruments also contained extensive notes in the margins made by the interviewer, providing important information to the data processors about various aspects of the data being reported by the respondent that was not captured by the structured interview. These so-called "marginal notes" have been used extensively by PSID data processors to generate accurate data values. Even today, PSID data processors retrieve paper interviews from the secure facility within ISR that stores the paper interviews as they attempt to reconcile conflicting information over time.Interview questions can often be complicated, and even potentially ambiguous to both interviewers and respondents. Because of this, a guide is prepared for interviewers that they use to help address any questions that arise when administering the survey interview to respondents. These guides, as well as other interviewer training materials, can be valuable to researchers as they interpret responses to the questions that underlie the data. The PSID has made available such information for interview waves 1997 and forward, but historical documents before this time have not been scanned/prepared and released.The goal of this project is to preserve and enhance utilization of historical information in the PSID. Specifically, we propose to scan all completed paper questionnaires 1968 to 1992, consisting of an estimated 15 million document pages. Moreover, electronic versions of all PSID interviewer training documents, 1968 to the present, will be created and these documents will be made available to all users through the PSID website.By converting the paper questionnaires to electronic format, the broader impacts of the project include the preservation of historically important data which is currently deteriorating, and at risk of soon being too degraded for preservation. The preservation of these data will make it easier and less expensive for PSID data processors to access this historical information, and use it to better understand and improve the quality of the data. The conversion of the interviewer materials, including training materials and "question-by-question" documents, will provide users with easy access to historically important, wave-specific information about specific questions, and data collection procedures.A key intellectual merit is the facilitation of future scientific research - described throughout the proposal - through the ongoing improvement of data quality made possible by the preservation of these historical data, and through the resulting generation of new variables and information that would be made available to scientists.