The Swiss StudentLife Study

The Swiss StudentLife study was conducted by the Social Networks Lab (research group of Christoph Stadtfeld) at ETH Zürich between 2016 and 2020. Its aim was to understand the emergence of a student community and its short-term and long-term effects on the academic outcomes and well-being of its members. While similar questions and settings are commonly examined using a single data collection technique (e.g. survey, observation), we employ multiple methods to map the social dynamics of the community at different time periods and on different time scales.

The study follows three cohorts of students (N1 = 226, N2 = 244, N3 = 652), who started 3-year bachelor programs at a Swiss technical university in 2016 and 2017. Members of each cohort shared most of their classes and often did course work in groups. Students came from various regions and countries; at the beginning of their studies, most of them did not know each other. However, after a few months they developed densely-knit multidimensional social networks, which were likely to influence their university experience and outcomes.

Codebook

The codebook of the Swiss StudentLife study can be viewed here (or as external pagePDF downloadcall_made). 

Data availability

In agreement with the ethics board of ETH Zürich (approval 2016-N-27), we follow a strict protocol ensuring the anonymity of the study participants. Only highly anonymized data samples are shared on publicly available servers.

However, data for replication and original research studies is made available to external researchers on request. For original studies, variables and research hypotheses need to be prespecified. Depending on data sensitivity, access can only be granted through ETH servers on-site after an instruction by trained project members.

Any queries regarding data access should go via the data request form.

Publications