EWCTS 2021 – Data validation

Data validity checks carried out during and after data collection for Eurofound’s surveys are an important aspect of quality control. For the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS), Eurofound developed a comprehensive data checking and validation exercise in collaboration with the survey contractor Ipsos.

Quality and consistency of variables

The dataset has been assessed to ensure high quality and consistency of variables, with checks covering the following:

• Routing – if respondents answered questions applicable to them according to the questionnaire script
• Permitted values – if all answers are in line with the options or combinations available for selection by the interviewer (for closed answer questions) or a permitted range of responses (for open-ended questions)
• Consistency checks – evaluating the levels of consistency between the questions when the permitted values for the particular variables were further filtered down by answers from the previous question
• Outliers –checks were designed so that any unsatisfactory values were flagged before any data analysis was completed
• Contact data validation – assessing if all contact rules have been respected
• Variables distribution and outliers – the probability/accuracy of the information provided and solutions to fix any issues found

Reporting on validation of data

For more details and the solutions applied to any issues encountered during the data validation process, please see the Data validation report.