The target activity of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) is to collect longitudinal data on the development of competencies, educational processes, educational decisions, and returns to education in formal, nonformal, and informal contexts throughout the life span.
The data is released as quickly as possible to the national and international scientific community in the form of a so-called anonymous Scientific Use Files.
This will provide a rich source of potential analyses for the various disciplines (such as demographics, educational science, economics, psychology, sociology) concerned with educational and training processes, and it will provide the basis for major improvements in educational reporting and the provision of expert advice for policymakers in Germany.
More detailed information on this study can be found on the NEPS website.
Many universities and research institutes with nearly 200 researchers from all over Germany work together in a close network to plan and design the study. The network is coordinated at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg led by Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt.
The study is funded by common federal and state support.
IEA's contribution comprises the provision of school lists for sampling, school recruitment, field operations, administration, and provision of the technical survey infrastructure, coding, data collection, and processing within all NEPS surveys conducted in the school context, and panel maintenance in the out-of-school context.