WLS Codebooks

Note: Codebooks contain frequency data from the private data release. For some variables, these differ from the frequencies in the public release. Variables that differ between the public and private versions include "(not available on public release)" as part of the variable description, or a note indicating the difference between the public and private versions.

In Person: Cognition - Similarities

JCOGSIM  Cognition - Similarities Module

OVERVIEW

The Cognition - Similarities Module, which was first administered during the
1993 collection wave and replicated in 2004, assesses cognitive ability using
selected questions from the fourteen-item Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS). WAIS items, which prompt participants to provide reasonable
explanations for how two things are alike, adhere to the format, "in what way
are [object #1] and [object #2] alike?" Eight items were asked of all
participants in 1993, with between six and nine being administered in 2004
depending on random sub-sampling. For the 2011 collection wave, only the six
WAIS items asked of all participants in 1993 and 2004 were included in the
Cognition - Similarities Module; as in past waves, the simplest WAIS items were
excluded pursuant to the assumption that the general ability of the WLS
graduate cohort is high enough to make substantial variation in responses to
simple items unlikely. The six included WAIS items called for participants to
look for similarities between the things in the following sets: an orange and a
banana; an eye and an ear; an egg and a seed; a table and a chair; a fly and a
tree; and praise and punishment.

If the participant permitted their interviewer to record the CAPI interview,
responses to WAIS items were transcribed verbatim after its completion. If, on
the other hand, the participant refused permission to record, their responses
to WAIS items were manually entered by the interviewer during administration of
the Cognition - Similarities Module. For each item, the participant's
similarity response was assigned a score between zero and two quantifying its
reasonableness, with a "2" being the top score. If the participant indicated
they did not know how two things were alike when asked a WAIS item - or simply
made no specific guess - they were assigned a value of "-1" for that item,
signifying "don't know." If our audio record's quality was not sufficient for
deciphering the participant's response to an item, or if the participant
misheard the question and was not corrected by the interviewer, they were
assigned a value of "-4" and coded as "not ascertained." A six-item summary of
the participant's performance in the Cognition - Similarities Module was
generated by totaling their scores for each WAIS item, codes of "don't know"
being treated as scores of "0"; items coded as "refused" (-3) or "not
ascertained" (-4) did not contribute at all to the summary measure. 

For more information about the nature of the Cognition - Similarities Module
and our cognition data at prior collection waves, please see Appendix G; CORs
859 and 871, which outline the scoring and open-ended coding procedures used in
2004 (and 2011). Additionally, examples of 2-point, 1-point, and 0-point
answers to each of the WAIS items can be found in cor970. No new documentation
about the Cognition - Similarities Module was added to the appendix for the
2011 collection wave. 


BRIEF VARIABLE DESCRIPTIONS

    Variable ranges reference dataset/codebook order and are not necessarily 
    alphabetical.
    _____________________________________________________________________

    HSIMSTAT-HSIMREL:	    Module-Level Status Variables

    HI101RE:                6-Item Score Summarizing Participant's
    			    Performance on the WAIS Questions Selected
    			    for Inclusion in this Module

    HI111RE:       	    Score for Participant's Response to 'In 
    			    What Way Are an Orange and a Banana Alike?'
    
    HI113RE:		    Score for Participant's Response to 'In 
    			    What Way Are an Eye and an Ear Alike?'
    
    HI115RE:		    Score for Participant's Response to 'In 
    			    What Way Are an Egg and a Seed Alike?'
    
    HI116RE:		    Score for Participant's Response to 'In
    			    What Way Are a Table and a Chair Alike?'
    
    HI118RE:		    Score for Participant's Response to 'In 
    			    What Way Are a Fly and a Tree Alike?'
    
    HI119RE:		    Score for Participant's Response to 'In 
    			    What Way Are Praise and Punishment Alike?'

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