Content in the Study can be searched via the questionnaire modules or by index term.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires can also be found on the documentation pages of the Understanding Society website. These are also included in the zipped folder when you download the data from the UK Data Service. There are household and individual questionnaires and the adult and youth self-completion instruments. These are an important source of information about the wording of individual questions, who was asked, and what questions precede and follow.
Most of the interview is conducted with a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) and from Wave 8 onwards also via computer-assisted web interview (CAWI). These instruments govern the flow of questions and recording of answers, but it is not convenient for documentation. On the Study website, we present the questionnaire in PDF format. The text within the questionnaire can be searched for specific words, such as variable names or words in questions. These pdf questionnaires include all the different questionnaires except for the youth questionnaires (all waves) and adult self-completion questionnaires for Waves 1 and 2. The PDF files for the adult self-completion questionnaires for Waves 1 and 2 as well as the youth questionnaires (all waves) correspond to the way they appeared to participants (with the addition of annotated variable names).
Questionnaire modules
The principal adult questionnaires are organised into modules. Modules can be searched for in the online documentation system. About half of the questionnaire content is collected annually, with additional modules collected at different intervals, often every two, three or four years. The paper self-completion questionnaires carried at Waves 1 and 2 were not divided into modules as these were separate stand alone documents. From Wave 3 onward, the self-completion content was carried as CASI modules, where the interviewer would turn the laptop towards the participant who would answer the questions using the laptop by themselves.
Instruments and survey materials for Waves 1 -7 were translated into multiple languages: Welsh, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Gujarati, Punjabi (in Urdu and Gurmukhi scripts), Somali and Urdu. Translated documents can be requested by email from info@understandingsociety.ac.uk. For the new Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost, introduced in Wave 6, instruments and survey materials were also translated into Polish, Portuguese and Turkish. From wave 8 onwards the survey instruments and materials were translated into Welsh, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi (in Urdu and Gurmukhi scripts), Urdu, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish for everyone. For the first time at Wave 13, the web version of the questionnaire was also translated, so translated interviews could be conducted in any mode.
Index terms
All variables have been linked to one or more Index Terms. This makes it easier to find variables. For example, if you are interested in researching child care you can click on the Index Term “child care” and see all the variables associated with it.
Finding variables
Understanding society is a vast survey including thousands of questions and variables associated with them. Find the variables you need for your research by using the Variable search facility. Search by variable name, by data file or by index term or question module. This facility provides links between questions, variables and data files. Explore the video How to use the Variable search. Our list of key variables for the analysis of individual response data may also help you.
Creating syntax with the Code creator
To help researchers get started with their research the Code creator extracts data from the Main Study and produces a simple flat data file. Select the variables needed from the Variable Search, ‘save’ the variables and ‘build’ the code. It provides you with ready-made Stata syntax to run on the downloaded data.
