-----Original Message-----
From:   stuart.bowman [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Friday, April 06, 2001 5:18 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        educational qualifications questionnaires

I'm looking for a usable categorisation of educational qualifications that I
can use in  questionnaire survey of Big Issue vendors.

I want vendors to tell us the highest level of qualification they possess.
So something which provides a list going from the most basic qualification
up to a PhD would be ideal.

Any suggestions or examples from other surveys would be great.  Also, it
would be useful to be able to make comparisons with the general population.
Does the General Household Survey or something similar have this sort of
information in it?


Cheers

Stuart Bowman
---------------
[Information from documentation for the GHS available from
the Data Archive http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/]

There is no 'harmonised' definition of highest educational
qualification used in government surveys as yet.

The General Household Survey asks very detailed questions
to obtain highest educational qualification.  It uses
showcards with lists of exams and qualifications for
the respondent to indicate which they have, and then asks
for specific grades on exams.  The answers are used to
compute a derived variable with 17 levels, as shown below.
This is also recoded into broader groupings - EDLEV2, with
8 levels, would be more practical if you just wanted
respondents to classify themselves - probably you would
want to drop the Scottish standard grade 6 and below,
and foreign categories.

If comparing your sample with the general population, you
should use comparable age-groups, since educational levels
have increased considerably for more recent generations.

Anne Scott.

[log in to unmask]

Dept of Social Policy
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE

tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6517
fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7415
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/sage/


EDLEV Highest Educational Qualification
380
Measurement Level: Scale
Column Width: 8 Alignment: Right
Print Format: F2.Write Format: F2
Value Label
-9 NEV WENT TO SCH
-8 NA
-6 AGE OUT/NO INT
1 HIGHER DEGREE
2 FIRST DEGREE
3 TEACHING QUAL
4 OTH HIGHER QUAL
5 NURSING QAUL
6 GCE A LEVEL 2+
7 GCE A LEVEL 1
8 GCSE & O LEV 5+, SG1-2
9 GCSE & OLV1-4, CM Q
10 GCSE&OLV1-4, NOCQ
11 COMM Q, NO Q LEVS
12 CSE GR2-5
13 APPRENTICESHIP
14 SCST G6-7 NO AWD
15 FOREIGN QUALS
16 OTHER QUALS
17 NO QUALS

EDLEV2
381
Measurement Level: Scale
Column Width: 8 Alignment: Right
Print Format: F2
Write Format: F2
Value Label
-8 NA NEV WENT SCH
-6 AGE OUT/NO INT
1 DEGREE OR EQUIV
2 LT DREGREE HIGHER Q
3 GCE ALEVEL EQUIV
4 GCSE OLEVEL EQUIV
5 CSE GRA 2-5 EQUIV
6 SG 6-7 NOAWARD
7 FOREIGN OTHER
8 NONE