Documentation for use with data collected through the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Data sets with which this manual is used include base-year (1972) survey data, collected by the Educational Testing Service, integrated with first follow-up (1973-1974), second follow-up (1974-1975), third follow-up (1976-1977) and fourth follow-up (1979-1980) survey data, collected by the Research Triangle Institute.

The National Longitudinal Study (NLS) of the High School Class of 1972 is a large-scale long-term survey effort supported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. NLS is designed to provide statistics on a national sample of students as they move out of the American high school system into the critical years of early adulthood. Data have been gathered and colligated from several sources, coded and edited for analysis purposes, and stored on magnetic computer tapes for future access. The current tapes contain base-year (1972) survey data, collected by the Educational Testing Service, integrated with first follow-up (1973), second follow-up (1974), third follow-up (1976), and fourth follow-up (1979) survey data, collected by the Research Triangle Institute. The Users Manual provides a detailed description of the merged NLS data file now available for use by the general research community. These data provide an extensive and potentially rich resource for a variety of research purposes. The purpose of this manual is to document the contents of the available tapes, and thereby enable the interested investigator to exploit effectively the research potential or' the data. The following are appended: (1) Instrumentation: Student's School Record Information Form, Base-Year Student Questionnaire, First Follow-Up Questionnaire (Form B), Second Follow-Up Questionnaire, Activity State Questionnaire, Third Follow-Up Questionnaire, Fourth Follow-Up Questionnaire, and Supplemental Questionnaire; (2) Critical Items and Supporting Items in the First, Second, and Third Follow-Up Questionnaires, and Critical Items in the Fourth Follow-Up Questionnaire; and (3) Miscellaneous Codes, Created Response Categories, and Questions with Resolvable Multiple Responses. [This report was prepared by the Center for Educational Research and Evaluation, Research Triangle Institute.].

This longitudinal data collection supplies information on the educational, vocational, and personal development of young people who were high school seniors in 1972 and examines the kinds of factors -- personal, familial, social, institutional, and cultural -- that may affect that development. The collection provides a broad spectrum of information on each student and covers areas such as ability, socioeconomic status, home background, community environment, ethnicity, significant others, current activity at time of survey, educational attainment, school experiences, school performance, work status, work performance and satisfaction, goal orientations, marriage and the family, and military experience. Data collected in the base-year (1972) focus on factors relating to the student's personal/family background, education and work experiences, plans, aspirations, attitudes, and opinions. The first follow-up, which was conducted in 1973, offers information on the respondent's activity state (education, work, etc.), socioeconomic status, work and educational experience since leaving high school, future plans, and expectations. The second follow-up (1974) probes respondents on similar measures but is augmented by additional variables pertaining to work and education. The third follow-up (1976) contains additional items on graduate school application and entry, job supervision, sex roles, sex and race biases, and a subjective rating of high school experiences. The fourth follow-up (1979) offers data similar to the other follow-ups but includes some variables that were modified to elicit unique information. For the fifth follow-up, the sample members averaged 32 years of age and had been out of high school for 14 years. In addition to covering the same subject areas as the previous surveys, this follow-up includes additional questions on marital history, divorce, child suppor ... Cf. : http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/ICPSR-STUDY/08085.xml.