Overview of Growing Up in Australia
Growing Up in Australia 2009-10 overview
Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) began in 2004 involving approximately 10,000 families around Australia. LSAC is investigating the contribution of children’s family, social, economic and cultural environments to their adjustment and wellbeing. A major aim is to identify policy opportunities for improving support for children and their families and for early intervention and prevention strategies.
The study follows a representative sample of children from across Australia. Data are collected from two cohorts each of approximately 5,000 children and their families every two years. In the first wave in 2004, the B or infant cohort was aged 3 to 19 months and the older, K or child, cohort was aged 4 to 5 years. Study informants include the child (from the age of 6 years), parents (both resident and non-resident), and carers and teachers.
The study has a broad, multidisciplinary base, and examines policy-relevant questions about children’s development and wellbeing. It addresses a range of research questions about parenting, family relationships, childhood education, non-parental child care and health.
Information is collected using a range of methodologies. The following is a selection of methods used in the Wave 4 data collection in 2009-10:
- a 10-15 minute computer assisted telephone interview with the study child’s parent at the time of arranging an appointment for the home visits
- direct assessments of the children including cognitive assessment, height, weight, and blood pressure
- telephone interviews for parents living apart from the study child
- paper form questionnaires for the second care giver living with the child
- computer based self-complete questionnaires for primary care givers replacing paper forms used in earlier waves
- time use diaries completed by K cohort study children about their activities over a 24-hour period.
Wave 3.5 data collection and release
In June 2009, study families were sent a questionnaire (known as Wave 3.5 mid-wave) asking about a range of topics including schooling, child health, media and technology, and stressful life events. Wave 3.5 provided an important opportunity to keep in touch with study families and to collect a range of information. For the B cohort, aged 5 to 6 years at the time, this included the transition to primary school. For the K cohort, aged 9 to 10 years, questions investigated the onset of puberty. About 64 per cent of eligible study families returned the questionnaire. Data was released in March 2010 and some of the initial findings from Wave 3.5 are included in this report.
Wave 4 data collection
The first stages of Wave 4 data collection began in late 2009. This followed extensive pre-testing of new content and methodologies undertaken in 2009. By June 2010, 3,017 study families had completed interviews, with interviews continuing until early 2011.
While the primary data collection method of a face-to-face interview with the child’s main parent continues in Wave 4, a range of methodology changes were implemented that should improve data quality, response rates and privacy. These changes will ensure time spent with families is used efficiently and effectively. Making the best use of time with families is very important, particularly as both cohorts are now at school, many families have two working parents, and children are often involved in a variety of after-school and weekend activities.
In Wave 4, nearly 180 interviewers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are collecting information from study families. New information is being collected from both the study child cohorts. To reduce the time of the home visit, a brief (10 to 15 minute) computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) is incorporated in the initial phone call with the study child’s primary parent/care giver. The telephone interview is optional and some families elect to answer these questions during the home visit. However, many families take up the option to get some of the questions out of the way early. Two new physical measurements will help us get a better picture of the health of children in Australia. With the consent of parents and children, we will:
- measure children’s body fat percentage in addition to their weight
- measure blood pressure in the K cohort children.
The B cohort are being asked questions about their lives for the first time in Wave 4. These include questions about how they like school and how they feel in general. The information we get directly from children is invaluable as it gives us the best indication of how they feel. The questions asked are simple and give children an introduction to responding themselves. As children get older we rely on them for more information. These are the same questions we asked the children in the older cohort when they were aged 6 to 7 years.
In Wave 4, the older K cohort children (aged 10 to 11 years) answer questions using a laptop computer and headphones so they can hear the questions as well as read them on the screen. This design caters for children of all reading abilities. Faster readers are able to go at their own pace and skip the audio, while slower readers can be assisted by the spoken word. As before, the questions will include topics such as their feelings about themselves, school, friends, family and their community.
Parents are also answering some of their questions on a laptop computer, although without the headphones. These computer self interviews are popular with both parents and children. They allow them to work at their own speed and answer sensitive questions in privacy.
Another innovation for Wave 4 is a Time Use Diary (TUD) for the K cohort children. Until now, parents have completed a TUD for their children. However, as the children get older, there are more and more hours in the day when their parents are unable to report what they are doing. To find out children’s perspective on how they spend their day, some of the K cohort children are now asked to complete a paper and pencil diary on the day before the interview. Figure 1 provides an example of the TUD used for some of the study children in 2010; the example covers only one page of the three pages of the TUD. Children are asked to recall the day’s activities, from the time they awake until they go to sleep, including dressing, travelling, eating, and before, during and after school activities. The TUD is broken into six time slots throughout the day to help prompt children to remember what they have done and when.
Figure 1: Example of a page of the Time Use Diary used by some of the study children
When the interviewer visits the following day, the interviewer sits with the study child and enters the information onto the computer, prompting children if there is insufficient information written in the diary.
The home visit is carefully structured to make the best use of the time the interviewer is in the home. The interviewer takes two computers into the home, which are used in parallel. For example, while the primary parent/care giver is completing the self-report on one computer, the interviewer is conducting the physical measurements with the study child and assisting the child to enter the time use information onto the second computer.
Research publications and dissemination
Use of LSAC data and research continued to grow during 2009-10. There are over 370 registered LSAC data users across Australia and overseas. In addition, nearly 30 journal articles and reports were published and approximately 50 conference presentations were delivered (see Publications and presentations). Website visits to the Growing Up in Australia site have increased; in 2008-09 there were 182,263 total visits to the Growing Up in Australia website increasing to 202,264 during 2009-10 (see Table 3).
Second LSAC research conference
The 2nd Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) Research Conference was held on 3-4 December 2009 in Melbourne. The conference drew a crowd of around 185 professionals from Australia and overseas sharing knowledge about the use of LSAC data in research and policy development and exploring the potential of the dataset.
Professor Andrew Leigh (formerly of the Australian National University) delivered the keynote address on the first day of the conference and described his research analysing the impact of child care on the behavioural outcomes of children aged 2 to 3 years. On the second day, Professor Ann Sanson (University of Melbourne) presented a keynote address on her research examining the risk and protective factors influencing children’s physical, cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes. Over the two days more than 30 presentations from leading researchers from Australia and abroad were delivered based on their analyses of LSAC data. Other leading researchers delivered presentations in the areas of health, media, schooling and education, parenting, parental employment and intergenerational mobility using LSAC data.
Maximising the value of longitudinal studies for policy and science: methodological and analytical issues—workshop
On 12-13 November 2009, FaHCSIA and the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY)/Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Network hosted a workshop to discuss the management, analysis and methods used in longitudinal studies—Maximising the value of longitudinal studies for policy and science: methodological and analysis issues.
The workshop was jointly facilitated by Professor Ann Sanson, Network Coordinator, ARACY ARC Research Network Coordinator and LSAC Consortium Advisory Group, and Dr Helen Rogers, LSAC Section Manager.
The workshop included nine presentations, three panel discussions and a poster session addressing a range of issues in longitudinal studies, including participant retention and attrition, data collection, weighting and imputation, data linkage and data harmonisation. The workshop was a valuable opportunity for LSAC data users and policy makers to learn about recent developments in similar birth cohort studies internationally including the Millennium Birth Cohort Study in the United Kingdom and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study in New Zealand.
Life documentary series
Following the successful screenings on ABC television of Life at 1 and Life at 3, LSAC is involved with the third instalment in the series. Life at 5 is produced by Heiress Films and, as with the first two instalments, draws on the experience of LSAC study families. Life at 5 follows the same 11 children and their families, observing their ordinary routines and milestones and looking at factors impacting on their lives such as their parents’ relationship, finances, work, health and education. The series uses LSAC data and findings to relate the lives of the documentary children to other Australian children. AIFS and FaHCSIA staff are involved in advising on the use and interpretation of the data and research. Two of the members of the study’s Consortium Advisory Group, Stephen Zubrick and Ann Sanson, provide expert advice to the series and play an important role in the commentary. Life at 5 completed production mid-2010 and is scheduled to be screened in 2011.