Preserving and Utilizing Historical Data in the PSID

收入动态小组研究（PSID）是世界上运行时间最长的家庭小组调查。PSID拥有超过40年的关于同一家庭及其后代的数据，是世界上基于社会科学研究的数据基础设施的基石。通过对经济和社会福祉的长期衡量，这项研究使研究人员和政策分析人员能够调查社会和行为过程中固有的活力。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强大的机会，研究几十年来同一家族的进化和变化。PSID开始于一个大多数调查的时代-包括PSID -使用纸和笔进行;计算机辅助采访，更不用说基于网络的采访，仍然是几十年后的事。为每个受访者打印了一份纸质调查表，采访者将受访者的答案直接写在仪器上。这种方法从1968年到1992年一直使用，当时开始使用计算机辅助面试。完成的书面采访被送回密歇根大学进行数据输入，届时数据处理人员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-填写在文书上的手写开放式答复没有输入电子数据文件，而是编入一个分类变量。这些文书还在空白处载有访谈者所作的大量注释，为数据处理者提供了关于答复者报告的数据的各个方面的重要信息，而这些信息没有被结构化访谈捕捉到。PSID数据处理器广泛使用这些所谓的“旁注”来生成准确的数据值。即使在今天，PSID数据处理人员也会从ISR内部的安全设施中检索纸质访谈，因为他们试图随着时间的推移协调相互矛盾的信息。访谈问题通常很复杂，甚至可能对访谈者和受访者都有歧义。正因为如此，为访谈者准备了一份指南，用于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。这些指南以及其他采访者培训材料对研究人员很有价值，因为他们解释了对数据背后问题的回答。公共部门信息发展司为1997年及以后的访问波提供了这类信息，但在此之前的历史文件尚未扫描/编制和公布，本项目的目标是保存和加强公共部门信息发展司中历史信息的利用。具体来说，我们建议扫描所有完成的纸质问卷1968年至1992年，估计有1500万页的文件。此外，还将制作1968年至今的所有PSID访谈员培训文件的电子版，并通过PSID网站向所有用户提供这些文件，通过将纸质调查表转换为电子格式，该项目的更广泛影响包括保存具有历史意义的数据，这些数据目前正在恶化，很快就有可能退化得无法保存。这些数据的保存将使PSID数据处理人员更容易和更便宜地访问这些历史信息，并利用它来更好地了解和提高数据的质量。访谈材料的转换，包括培训材料和“逐问题”文件，将使用户能够方便地获得关于具体问题的历史上重要的、特定于浪潮的信息，和数据收集程序。一个关键的知识价值是促进未来的科学研究-整个提案都有描述-通过保存这些历史数据不断提高数据质量，并通过由此产生的新变量和信息提供给科学家。

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.