National Longitudinal Survey Of Children And Youth Vol 2, number 1
National Longitudinal Survey Of Children And Youth
May 1996
Vol.2, No.1
Welcome To Our Second Newsletter
We're back to update you on some of our recent activities related to the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Yes, that's right! The first bit of news is that we've changed our name. Given that our kids are getting older and becoming adolescents, we have added 'Youth'. In short, we will now be known as the NLSCY.
Data From The First Collection Are Coming Out Soon!
Over the past year, Statistics Canada has been evaluating the quality of the data collected in the late fall of 1994 and spring of 1995 and organizing it into a data file that can be released to the public. Because there is so much available, the data have been divided into two parts. We expect the first and largest part to be available in the fall of 1996. The second part will be available later in the spring of 1997. Table 1 shows the data which will be released at these two times.
We are all very excited about the preliminary analysis of the data which is being done by some of our survey advisors. When the data come out in the fall, it will be accompanied by a book containing a series of articles of original analysis based on our first cycle results. There will be a paper outlining highlights of the survey results as well as papers on topics such as step families, single-parent families, school achievement, factors related to early development, emotional and behavioural problems, aggression, temperament, and parenting.
The data being released will be available on a microdata file and a CD-ROM from Statistics Canada. The documentation which accompanies the file and the CD-ROM will explain their content and structure.
| First Wave Release | Second Wave Release |
|---|---|
| Child Information | Child Information |
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| Information collected from 10-11 year old children | Information collected from 10-11 year old children |
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| Parent Information | Parent Information |
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| School | School |
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| Household demographics | Household demographics |
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| Dwelling and neighbourhood data | Dwelling and neighbourhood data |
Research
Now that the data are almost ready, we are getting anxious to see it being used. We have been thinking about ways to co-ordinate research using our data and about the research topics which we want to concentrate on first. We'll let you know more about our thinking on this in the near future.
Here's our Schedule of Upcoming Activities:
- Cycle One
Fall 1996 - First wave data release
Spring 1997 - Second wave data release - Cycle Two
April 1996 - Field test
Summer 1996 - Finalization of survey instruments
Fall 1996 - Finalization of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) programming and testing
November /December 1996 and February 1997 - Data collection in households
March 1997 - Data collection in schools
We're Getting Ready For The Second Data Collection.
While the first cycle data are being prepared for release, some of us have been planning for the second collection. Statistics Canada interviewers will be going back to re-interview families that we talked to two years ago. The interviewers will go back in November and December 1996 and February 1997. If a child has moved in the past two years, we will follow him or her to the new address.
In the first cycle, our children ranged from newborn to 11 years of age. As we will be following up on these same children, they will now be 2 to 13 years old. We'll be adding a new sample of newborn and one year old children in the second cycle to make sure that our cross-sectional estimates are still representative.
Our content team has been working to prepare a questionnaire that 12 and 13 year old children will fill in by themselves. Some of the questions are similar to those we asked these same children two years ago when they were 10 or 11; other questions are on topics which are now of interest because the children are getting older. For example, we've added some new questions about relations with peers and time spent alone, about school, about behaviour, activities, health, work and money. We've also changed a few of the questions which we ask parents to make them more relevant for 12 and 13 year old children.
We also have revised questionnaires which will be sent out to our children's teachers. We have three questionnaires this time, one each for the teachers of children in kindergarten and primary grades and one to be used in grades where the children have more than one teacher. The questionnaire for principals remains mostly the same as the one we used in 1994/95.
The new questionnaires and collection procedures were tested in a field test in April 1996. We are now finalizing our questions and collection plans based on the results of this test. If you would like a copy of the field test questionnaires, give us a call or send us a fax. We'll be happy to send you a package. The team is working on a long-term plan for testing cognitive development. At the moment, we plan to give both a math skills and reading comprehension test in the school.
That's it for now. We'll be back in touch when we release our data this fall!
"Developments" is produced by Income Security and Social Development Studies in Applied Research Branch, Human Resources Development Canada. For additional copies, or an alternate format, please contact Susan McKellar.
Tel: 819-953-4230
Fax: 819-953-8584
susan.mckellar@hrdc-drhc.gc.ca