The China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) is a large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal survey starting with two cohorts – the 7th and 9th graders in the 2013-2014 academic year. Documenting educational processes and transitions by which students progress through various educational stages, the CEPS aims at explaining the linkages between individuals' educational outcomes and multiple contexts of families, school processes, communities and social structure, and further studying the effects of educational outcomes during people's life course.
The CEPS applies a stratified, multistage sampling design with probability proportional to size (PPS), randomly selecting a school-based, nationally representative sample of approximately 20,000 students in 438 classrooms of 112 schools in 28 county-level units in mainland China. The baseline survey of CEPS was completed in the 2013-2014 academic year, conducted by National Survey Research Center (NSRC) at Renmin University of China. The data are currently available for academic research. Follow-up surveys are annual as the sample adolescents matriculate throughout the junior-high stage and in the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 17th and 27th year after they graduate from junior-high. CEPS will last more than 30 years, during which a new cohort of 7th graders will be started in a 10-year interval.
The CEPS administers 5 different questionnaires to the sample students, parents, homeroom teachers, main subject teachers who are not the homeroom teacher, and school administrators.
The student questionnaire includes topics such as students’ demographic characteristics, mobility and migration status, childhood experience, health status, household structure, parent-child interactions, in-school performance, extra curricular activities, relationship with teachers and peers, social behavior development, and expectations for the future.
Parent questionnaire consists of questions about parents' demographic characteristics and lifestyles, parent-child interactions, educational environment and investment for child, community environment, parent-teacher interactions, and parents' perceptions of school education and expectations for the future of the child.
The questionnaire for homeroom and main subject teachers involves questions concerning teachers' demographic characteristics, teaching experience, commentson student behaviors, parent-teacher interactions, comparison between local and non-local students, perceptions of education, and degree of stress and job satisfaction.
The questionnaire for school administrators asks about administrators’ demographic characteristics, perceptions of education, school' s educational facilities, daily management, enrollment of students, statistics of the student body and staff body.
The CEPS employs diverse approaches and various techniques to collect comprehensive, high-quality data. It conducts a standardized cognitive ability tests for students in each grade respectively and an Internet-based personality test for all sample students, and collects transcripts of important examinations (mid-term examinations, senior high school entrance examination, and college entrance examination). Health checks and medical tests will be organized in the coming waves to collect students' bio-markers.
The CEPS data is timely and significant because it captures the educational development during the rapid social change in China, providing rich and invaluable data source for researches in social sciences, policy makers, and school administrators.
Funding Sources of CEPS include:
1. Renmin University Scientific Research Foundation
2. Social Survey Foundation of Nationa Survey Research Center
3. National Science Foundation (NSF)