Starting Samples: The Multicohort Sequence Design

Methodologically, the NEPS is based on a multicohort sequence design. For it to obtain relevant data as quickly as possible, four starting cohorts will be recruited in 2010. These will be composed of respondents passing through a specific stage of the education system or belonging to a specific age group. Sample selection is oriented toward transitions both within the education system and between the education system and the labor market. The major transitions are those to elementary school, to the tracked secondary school system, to vocational training or higher education, and to the labor market. An exception is the starting cohort focusing on adult education. Irrespective of current participation in education or the labor market, this random sample of 23- to 64-year-olds will already be recruited and surveyed in 2009. Work has also started on recruiting a birth cohort of infants in order to document and analyze early child development and entrance into early institutional childcare systems (e.g., Kindergarten and day nursery). Because more time is needed to develop appropriate instruments, the main surveys in this cohort will not start until 2012. To summarize, during the first phase of funding up to 2013, the NEPS will survey all members of the six above-mentioned cohorts at least once a year.

The representative starting cohorts are composed of infants, 4-year-olds attending Kindergarten, 5th-grade students (10- to 11-year-olds), 9th-grade students (14- to 15-year-olds), first-year higher education students, and 23- to 64-year-old adults. To gain additional information on target persons in the stages bridging the time between infancy and 9th grade, the NEPS will also survey their parents, selected preschool teachers, school teachers, and school principals. This means that by the end of the first phase of funding, detailed information will be available on the following stages of educational attainment in the life course: (a) development in the first 2 years of life; (b) from Kindergarten through school enrollment up to the middle of elementary school; (c) Grades 5 to 8 of lower secondary school (Sekundarstufe I); (d) Grades 9 to 10 and the subsequent transitions to vocational training and the labor market; (e) Grade 9 in the Gymnasium (grammar school) and the subsequent transitions to higher education, vocational training, or the labor market; (f) higher education and the transitions to the labor market or to a Master's study course after completing a Bachelor's; and (g) further education and work careers in adults over a 5-year period.