http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.14395
ALLBUScompact 2023 available in the GESIS data catalog!
We are delighted to finally be able to announce the long-awaited publication of ALLBUS 2023. While the replication of long time series was a focus of the survey, ALLBUS 2023 also features a good number of innovations, making it a rewarding and, in some respects, challenging data set.
Focus module Religion and Worldview
After 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012, the focus module Religion and Worldview saw its fifth iteration in ALLBUS 2023. This allows trend analyses in religious change in Germany to be extended. In addition to established indicators measuring various dimensions of individual religiosity, the module comprises several new instruments catering to current research trends.
- A newly developed short scale on religious fundamentalism has been added.
- Moreover, there is a new item battery on the reasons for leaving mainstream Christian churches.
- Current moral issues are covered by two new instruments on attitudes towards assisted suicide and technologies of assisted reproduction.
- Finally, to align ALLBUS closer with international research into values, a version of the newly developed Values and Life Goals Inventory based on the work of Shalom Schwartz was fielded in a split ballot design alongside the established scale of individual value orientations by Klages.
However, because ALLBUS 2023 is also characterized by some methodological peculiarities, we had to reduce the scope of the focus module somewhat in order to create space for the replication of time series from other question modules.
Transition from personal interviews to self-administered questionnaires
Because of safety concerns during the COVID pandemic, ALLBUS 2020 had to be postponed by one year and could finally only be realized as a self-administered survey. While this switch to self-administered survey modes was forced by extraordinary circumstances, a general trend towards ever lower participation rates is making surveys using personal interviews increasingly expensive. In future, ALLBUS will therefore transfer to an entirely self-administered survey design.
Methodologically, this switch to self-administered surveys is challenging, because the survey mode has an influence on response behavior. To be able to empirically examine this effect, the ALLBUS 2023 survey design comprised three survey modes: in the first subsample computer-assisted personal interviews were conducted, as was standard until 2018; in the second subsample a self-administered survey was fielded, here respondents could choose between a paper questionnaire and a web survey. Additionally, the second subsample was split once more to test different contact strategies. The first group of respondents could choose between a paper questionnaire or a web survey from the beginning (simultaneous design), whereas the second group of respondents was at first exclusively invited to participate in a web survey and was only offered the choice of a paper questionnaire with the second and final reminder letter (sequential design).
Updated access conditions for ALLBUS data
Partly because it will be possible to link the main ALLBUS data to other GESIS data products in the future, we revised the technical and organizational measures for data protection for ALLBUS. As a result, the access conditions for ALLBUS data needed to be updated. Starting with ALLBUS 2023, there are three access paths for the ALLBUS data, graded according to the degree of anonymization:
- ALLBUScompact will continue to be offered for download after registration. In this dataset, some socio-demographic characteristics have been coarsened while regional information has been removed except for one variable indicating whether respondents resided in Eastern or Western Germany.
- The ALLBUS full version will be accessible after signing a user contract. This data version contains additional regional information (e.g. federal state, structural characteristics of the places of residence) and the uncoarsened demographic characteristics of respondents.
- The sensitive ALLBUS regional data will continue to be made available for use in the GESIS Secure Data Center. The previously separate regional and geodata will be integrated into a joint service.