Data Information

The final ECLS-B restricted-use data file was released in December, 2009. It contains data from all rounds of the ECLS-B as well as some supplemental data (e.g., from the joint book-reading mini-study).

Confidentiality. Due to NCES's confidentiality legislation, ECLS-B case-level data are available only to qualified researchers who are granted a restricted-use data license. When presenting analyses, preparing manuscripts, publishing ECLS-B results, or sending email correspondence (including to NCES staff), analysts must comply with ECLS-B rounding rules. Unweighted sample sizes must be rounded to the nearest 50. For example, a cell size of 25 to 74 is rounded to 50, 75 to 124 is rounded to 100, and a cell size less than 25 is denoted by a symbol indicating "rounds to zero." Further, all presentations and manuscripts prepared using ECLS-B restricted-use data must be sent to the NCES Data Security Office (IESData.Security@ed.gov) for disclosure review prior to publication or presentation, as is required by the terms of the NCES restricted-use data license.

Periodicity

Birth: Information regarding prenatal care and delivery was obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics and the 9-month parent interview.

9 months of age: In this first round of data collection, the ECLS-B directly assessed children and interviewed primary caregivers (usually the mother) in the children's homes. Resident and nonresident fathers completed a self-administered questionnaire. The in-home visit included a videotaping of parent-child interaction.

2 years of age: The ECLS-B directly assessed children and interviewed primary caregivers in the children's homes. Resident and nonresident fathers completed a self-administered questionnaire. The in-home visit included a videotaping of parent-child interaction. Early care and education providers were interviewed by telephone and a subsample of the children had their nonparental care and education arrangements directly observed.

4 years of age/preschool: The ECLS-B directly assessed children and interviewed primary caregivers in the children's homes. Resident fathers completed a self-administered questionnaire. The in-home visit included a videotaping of parent-child interaction. Early care and education providers were interviewed by telephone and a subsample of the children had their nonparental care and education arrangements directly observed.

Kindergarten: Information about the children’s experiences at kindergarten entry was collected in two school years, 2006-07 and 2007-08. The second collection was necessary because children born later in 2001 were not age-eligible for kindergarten in 2006-07 and some children experienced a delayed kindergarten entry (i.e., they did not enter kindergarten when they were age-eligible to do so). Data were collected for all sample children in the fall of 2006 (the kindergarten 2006 collection), when approximately 75 percent of them were in kindergarten or higher. In the fall of 2007 (the kindergarten 2007 collection), data were collected for the 25 percent of sample children who had not entered kindergarten the year before, for children who were repeating kindergarten in the 2007-08 school year, and for twins of children in these groups.

In both kindergarten collections, the ECLS-B assessed children and interviewed their primary caregivers in the children's homes. In the kindergarten 2006 collection, the early care and education providers of children who had not yet entered kindergarten were interviewed by telephone. The before- and after-school care and education providers of children who were enrolled in kindergarten also were interviewed by telephone. Before- and after-school care and education providers of the children participating in the kindergarten 2007 collection were interviewed by telephone as well. In both collections, teachers of children enrolled in school completed a self-administered questionnaire. School data were drawn from existing universe data files supported by NCES (i.e., the Common Core of Data and the Private School Survey).

Data Format

ECLS-B restricted-use data are provided to license holders on a password-protected DVD. The DVD includes raw data files, Electronic Codebook (ECB) software that allows users to create customized data files, user manuals, sampling reports, the survey instruments, and the data file record layout. The ECB can be used to 1) examine variables in a dataset, 2) examine question wording, response categories and frequency distributions, and 3) select and export variables along with the appropriate code needed to create SAS, SPSS-PC and STATA datasets. For instructions on how to access the ECLS-B files on the restricted-use DVD, see "How to Install and Access Data on the ECLS-B DVD."

Top