NEPScomp — NEPS Data Compendium
Getting started analyzing data from the National Educational Panel Study
NEPScomp is an additional data offering for persons who are interested in starting to work with the complex research data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). It is designed particularly for the use in university courses and in student theses. Compared to the regular Scientific Use Files of the NEPS Starting Cohorts, NEPScomp features a number of simplifications. Despite the compact and relatively easy-to-analyze structure, the data package enables empirically valid findings on a wide range of research questions. Furthermore, NEPScomp is a dynamic data product that will be further developed in a transparent dialogue with data users via the Forum4MICA online platform.
Access to NEPScomp
The NEPScomp data (version 1.0.0) are available free of charge for scientific analysis to persons with a valid NEPS Data Use Agreement. The data are available in Stata and SPSS format with German and English labels. Downloading the packages requires prior registration on this website with nu-number and password.
Download NEPScomp (Stata) Download NEPScomp (SPSS)
Documentation of NEPScomp
The NEPScomp data documentation includes the basic data manual, the release notes, and the codebook. More detailed information, including survey instruments, field reports, and competence test descriptions, can be found on the documentation page for the respective NEPS Starting Cohort..
| Data Manual |
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The Data Manual describes the data and provides guidance for working with them. It contains information on the National Educational Panel Study in general and on the data structure of NEPScomp in particular. It also offers numerous recommendations for using the data. An English version is currently in preparation.
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| Release Notes |
TXT-en TXT-de |
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The Release Notes give an overview of the most important changes in NEPScomp compared to the previous data version. They also inform users about currently known problems or errors in the data and provide suggestions on how to deal with them.
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| Codebook |
ZIP-en ZIP-de |
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The Codebook documents all variables in NEPScomp – organized by Starting Cohort and dataset – including variable names and labels, the respective question wording, and the frequency distribution.
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Citation of NEPScomp
Those who conduct analyses based on NEPScomp are obliged to indicate the use of the data in their work by including the following reference in the bibliography:
NEPS Network. (2025). NEPScomp, National Educational Panel Study. Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), Bamberg. https://doi.org/10.5157/NEPScomp:SUF:1.0.0
In addition, the NEPS study should be mentioned at an appropriate place and the source should be cited:
This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS; see Blossfeld & Roßbach, 2019). The NEPS is carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi, Germany) in cooperation with a nationwide network.
Blossfeld, H.-P. & Roßbach, H.-G. (Eds.). (2019). Education as a lifelong process: The German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Edition ZfE (2nd ed.). Springer VS.
According to the NEPS Data Use Agreement (§ 9), any type of publication resulting from work with data from the National Educational Panel Study has to be reported to the LIfBi by email to fdz@lifbi.de.