Overview of the 9-year Cohort

Design

The 9-year cohort has two data collection components: school and home. Participants were recruited through the schools. Schools were selected at random then age-eligible children and their families were invited to participate, with a maximum of 40 children in each participating school. There are 8,000 study children in total. Within the school, children completed academic achievement tests, and teachers and Principals self-completed questionnaires. Teachers completed one questionnaire about themselves and one for each study child.

In the home phase of fieldwork, parents/guardians and study children were interviewed on a Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) basis. Topics covered in the interviews include child and parent health, child activities, family relationships, child’s emotional well-being, education, income and other socio-demographic characteristics. Other information recorded in the home were height and weight of respondents, and GPS co-ordinates.

If appropriate, and where permission was given, self-complete questionnaires were posted to non-resident parents and regular carers who look after the child for eight or more hours per week.

The quantitative aspect of the study is complemented by a qualitative study which involved further, more indepth interviews with approximately 120 families who had also taken part in the main quantitative phase. 

Where are we now?

The first wave of data collection for the 9-year cohort was completed in 2008. The Study Team have lodged an anonymised dataset from the first wave of the 9-year cohort with the Irish Social Sciences Data Archive . Wave 2 fieldwork, now that the children have reached 13-years of age is currently underway.

Data collection for the main phase of the qualitative aspect of Wave 1 in the 9-year cohort has also been completed. The qualitative data has been lodged with the Irish Qualitative Data Archive. 

Links to all published reports can be found on the News and Publications page.