TEDS Data Dictionary

Description

The Self-Perceived Ability and Anxiety (SPAA) questionnaire, or Spatial Abilities questionnaire, formed part of the Bricks web study battery. It consisted of 35 questionnaire items, which are listed in full below. The items were grouped into the following measures:

• Native language (1 item)
• Spatial ability (8 items)
• Spatial anxiety (10 items)
• Maths anxiety (9 items)
• General anxiety (7 items)

For each questionnaire item, the twins were asked to rate themselves by selecting a response from a set of options presented on screen as radio buttons, selected using mouse clicks. Each set of items, as listed above, was presented together on screen in tabular form. Having selected a response for each item, a twin would proceed to the next page by clicking on a button. The response options for each item are shown below in the list of questions.

Web Questionnaire Rules

This simple questionnaire had no special rules. There was no branching, no discontinue rule, and no time-out rule.

The items were presented on screen in groups, as above, with the response options laid out in tabular form (within each group, all items had the same set of responses). Every item was compulsory: if any item on a page was not answered, it was not possible to click the button to proceed to the next page of items. The pages of items were presented in a fixed order that was the same for all twins.

The questionnaire was designed to be completed in one session. All responses were recorded in the browser (using javascript) and only submitted to the web server at the end of the questionnaire. Hence, if the questionnaire was halted mid-way through, for example by closing the browser, then all responses were lost; in this case, a twin would have to re-start the questionnaire from scratch on logging in again.

Dataset Item Variables

The item variables relating to the spatial abilities questionnaire, as listed in the table below, were generated automatically by programs on the web server. Additional derived variables relating to this questionnaire are described on the 18 year derived variables page. Note that the dataset only includes data for completed questionnaires. If a twin started the questionnaire but left it unfinished, then the data were not submitted to the web server and were therefore not recorded. The start and end dates/times have not been retained in the dataset.

Table of Questionnaire Items

The table below lists the text of each questionnaire item, as it appeared on screen in the web activity. The table also shows the response options for each item, and how the responses were coded. In a few cases, additional reverse-coded variables have been added to the dataset, and these variables are shown in the table.