Recently, in addition to the survey based data collection the importance of utilization of administrative databases has increased in social research. From the researchers’ perspective diverse nature of data sources and data collection methods are associated with different advantages and limitations which requires constant self-reflection. It is clear that regarding face to face interview based surveys due to several parallel trends (i.e. increasing  mobility, distrust and need for information) reaching potential respondents became more difficult and uncertain which could significantly increase the costs of data collection. Intensive expansion of technical and infrastructural facilities opened the space for online surveys which provide low-cost, rapid and extensive access to potential respondents. Obviously this procedure also has its own limitations: due to the low response rate reliability of data is greatly compromised by self-selection mechanisms. However, many existing administrative datasets offer itself for research as a cost-effective alternative data source. On one hand these official databases reserved for administrative purpose are able to provide full coverage of population, on the other hand they have their own limitations in the number and content of available variables. Linking administrative and survey data on individual level could be considered as a potential research procedure to compensate the weaknesses of the two aforementioned data collection methods. In our study we examine the possibilities and limitations of this procedure in terms of educational research approach within the framework of Hungarian career tracking research program.

It is an important task even for educational research to take account and consider the advantages and disadvantages of using and - what is more - integrating different type of educational data sources. In this context below we look for the possibility of validation of online survey data on graduate employment, particularly given the fact that these data may be important indicators of the effectiveness of the Higher Education system. In this respect, the results may play a role in education policy or funding decisions in the context of evidence based approach.

Linking administrative and survey data is a commonly used method to improve data quality (Davern-Thomas, 2009; Schnell, 2013) which provides opportunity to measure and correct effects of several data bias (coverage error, sampling error, nonresponse error, reporting error). The condition of the application of this method is to have data on the same population from both the administrative and survey databases (Groen, 2012). Our task is to summarize the experiences of such data integration on Hungarian datasets; however our conclusions are general in scope.

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