2012 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA)
Denver, Colorado
August 16, 2012, 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is sponsoring a 1-day professional development course at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) on August 16, 2012 from 10:00 am to 5:30 pm in Denver, Colorado. This seminar will provide researchers access to some of the most comprehensive early childhood education and care data resources in the nation, focusing on three nationally representative early childhood studies conducted by NCES: the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), and the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). In addition, a new ECLS study that is being conducted by NCES with children who were in kindergarten in the 2010-11 school year (the ECLS-K:2011) will be described.
The ECLS-K permits the examination of the relationship between a wide range of family, school, classroom, and individual characteristics and children’s development, learning, and school performance from kindergarten through eighth grade. The ECLS-B provides detailed information on children's early development, health, care, and education from birth through kindergarten entry. Oversamples in the ECLS-B offer a unique opportunity to analyze the early learning experiences of low and very low birth weight, twin, Asian/other Pacific Islander, and American Indian and Alaska Native children. The NHES surveys consist of multiple cross-sectional surveys focusing on children’s early learning activities, school readiness, nonparental child care and early education arrangements, and parent and family involvement in education and allow analysts to study how these have changed since the early 1990s. The design of the NCES early childhood surveys enables researchers to use data from more than one source to examine early childhood issues. The ASA seminar will provide information on the range of topics covered by each NCES study, the common measures used across the studies, and the limitations of each data source.
During the seminar, study design and technical issues relevant to data use will be presented, and a computer demonstration of software that assists users in preparing data for analyses will be conducted. The overall goals of the seminar are to inform researchers about the NCES early childhood studies and describe what the databases can offer separately and in complement with each other. The seminar also highlights technical issues researchers must recognize to correctly analyze these data.
NCES will provide participants with CDs that include copies of all slideshow presentations; handouts about the survey instruments; guides for using the datasets’ electronic codebook (ECB) software; links to the NHES, ECLS-B, ECLS-K, and ECLS-K:2011 websites; and tables providing information on sample sizes, weighting and variance estimation, and other technical issues related to the data. Participants will also receive the NHES and ECLS-K CD-ROMS, containing the public-use data files, ECB software, and electronic versions of the survey instruments and user’s manuals.
Researchers who are interested in attending the course must register through the ASA conference registration process. To register, please contact ASA through the Annual Meeting website at http://www.asanet.org/AM2012/index.cfm. For more information about the course content, please contact us ecls@air.org.
The fall kindergarten data collection took place from late August 2010 to late December 2010/early January 2011. The spring kindergarten data collection took place from late March 2011 to mid June 2011. Data are being collected in about 900 schools across the country from about 19,000 kindergartners and their families, teachers, and school administrators.
The fall first-grade data collection is taking place from late August 2011 to late December 2011/early January 2012 in about one-third of the total sample of schools participating in the study. The spring first-grade data collection will take place from late March 2012 to mid June 2012. In the spring, data will be collected in all schools participating in the study.
It is expected that data from the kindergarten rounds of data collection will be available to researchers in fall 2012.
For a full list of ECLS data products, please visit the Publications and Products area.
