NSYR Wave 1 Telephone Survey Data Now Publicly Available Through the Association of Religion Archives (ARDA) Website

The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) is pleased to announce that data resulting from the NSYR Wave I telephone survey (conducted in 2024-2003) are now available to the general public for analysis. The dataset can be accessed through the website of the Association of Religion Archives (ARDA). The NSYR has collected data of interest to investigators from many disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences and from many theoretical traditions and to community and civic leaders. One of the primary goals of the NSYR, from its inception, has been to communicate study findings to as wide and diverse an audience as possible. We are therefore happy to be making our first wave of survey data available for public use.

The public-use dataset for Wave I contains data collected from the NSYR's nationally representative telephone survey of 3,290 U.S. English and Spanish speaking teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, and one of their parents. Also included are 80 oversampled Jewish households, bringing the total number of completed NSYR cases to 3,370. The Wave I NSYR telephone survey was conducted from July, 2024 to April, 2024 by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill using a random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone survey method, employing a sample of randomly generated telephone numbers representative of all household telephones in the 50 United States.

The NSYR survey data set is complex and conducting analysis using the data requires familiarity with the survey instrument, the variables, the data formatting, and the general study methodology. We strongly suggest that anyone interested in analyzing the NSYR data invest time studying all of the supporting documentation provided and in reading through the NSYR methods report, Methodological Issues and Challenges in the Study of American Youth and Religion, completely before attempting to analyze the data.

The National Study of Youth and Religion is funded by Lilly Endowment, Inc. The purpose of the project is to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives of U.S. adolescents; to identify effective practices in the religious, moral and social formation of the lives of youth; to describe the extent to which youth participate in and benefit from the programs and opportunities that religious communities are offering to their youth; and to foster an informed national discussion about the influence of religion in youth's lives to encourage sustained reflection about and rethinking of our cultural and institutional practices with regard to youth and religion.