THE 2005 BES PRE-CAMPAIGN
DATA
INITIAL RELEASE:
May 31, 2005
Pre-campaign
data file-SPSS zip
Pre-campaign
data file-Stata zip
Pre-campaign
questionnaire (requires Adobe Acrobat)
Pre-campaign
data memo
(requires Adobe Acrobat)
Note
on sampling and weighting procedures
(requires Adobe Acrobat)
This
is the initial release of the 2005 BES pre-campaign data.
These data were gathered by in-person CAPI interviews carried out in
February and March 2005. Survey fieldwork was conducted by the National Centre
for Social Research (NATCEN) under the supervision of Research Director,
Katarina Thomson. This initial release data should be treated as a
"beta" version.
The
responses to the questions about turnout will be validated against the marked-up
electoral registers during the autumn of 2005. Validated turnout measures
will then be incorporated into the relevant files as soon as possible. The
turnout meaures should accordingly be regarded as provisional at this stage.
They almost certainly reflect the well-known tendency for surveys of all types
to over-report actual voting levels.
Further
coding, cleaning and checking will take place over the next few months, and
enhanced versions of these and other 2005 BES data will be posted on the website
as soon as possible. Re: the
present data, please note the following:
1.
Data
File: The file you download is called NCMAY31A.SAV
-- a SPSS system (.sav) file. Users
requiring the data in other formats can contact Harold Clarke (hclarke@utdallas.edu)
for assistance. Alternatively, they
can use a program such as DBMS COPY of STAT TRANSFER to translate the .sav file
into the format they need.
2.
Sample
sizes: The pre-campaign survey uses a sample of people 18 years of
age or older drawn from the British postcode address file.
There are substantial booster samples for Scotland and Wales.
The unweighted N for the entire sample = 3589.
N's for the three countries are: England = 2014, Scotland N = 933, Wales
N = 642.
3.
Weights: Users should employ the
weight variable AFINALWT to achieve a representative sample of Great Britain.
For a representative sample of England
alone, users should use the weight variable AENGWT.
For a representative sample of Scotland
alone, users should use the weight variable ASCOTWT.
For a representative sample of Wales
alone, users should use the weight AWALESWT.
4.
Summary Variables:
These variables summarize information using basic variables in the data
set. In the present release,
summary variables include: (i) AMISTOT -- all responses for most important issue
facing the country; (ii) APARTYID, ACLOSEID, ACLOSEW and ASPID -- variables for
responses to the traditional BES party identification battery; (iii) APTYSUP and
APTYSUPW -- variables for an alternative ("party supporter") measure
of partisanship.
5.
Question Wording:
The wording of questions asked in the survey is available in documents
that can be downloaded from the BES website.
For technical details re: the CAPI program, please consult the
"Draft Documentation of the Blaise Questionnaire" (PreCAPIMay31.doc).
6.
Comments, Questions, Problems?
Please contact Kristi Winters: kwinte@essex.ac.uk
The
BES office telephone number at the University of Essex is: 01206873346
The British Election Study 
