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All about GUS
Who
is carrying out the research?
What
type of study is it?
What are the areas of interest?
Why is the study happening?
Who is being interviewed?
How
often will the interviews take place?
How is the data collected?
How was the study sample
selected?
How many are taking part?
What age are the children
over the course of the study?
Which
areas of Scotland are being sampled and why?
Who is carrying out the research?
GUS is commisioned and funded by the Scottish
Government and is
being carried out by the Scottish
Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) in collaboration
with the Centre for Research on
Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University
of Edinburgh and the MRC
Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow.
What
type of study is it?
GUS is a large scale longitudinal and
cross sectional study. This means that it will provide information
about how circumstances and experiences for children in Scotland
are
changing and will also provide data about 'outcomes' for
children and the factors that influence outcomes.
What are the areas of interest?
The focus of interest in the study lies in the
characteristics, circumstances and experiences of Scotland’s
children in their early years and subsequently through to adolescence.
The main areas to be monitored and evaluated will be:
• childcare
• education
• social work/ support for parents
• health
• social inclusion
Data from GUS will be used to help monitor progress towards the
visions set out in the Government's Early
Years Framework
Why is the study happening?
The idea for GUS
grew out of a longitudinal scoping study
commissioned by the then Scottish Executive Education Department
(SEED) in 2000 which highlighted a lack of existing data relating
to
two
important developmental phases in children's lives - early years
and the transition into adolescence.
The Scottish Government would like every child
in Scotland to have the best start in life and to reach their
full potential. In order to do this,
they need to know more about children's circumstances; the opportunities,
difficulties and challenges that they face and what happens in
their
lives as they are growing up.
Through this long term monitoring and evaluation
of its policies for children, with a specific focus on the early
years, the Scottish Government, together with the wider research
community, will be better informed about the lives of Scotland's
families.
Who is being interviewed?
Initially the child’s main carer will
be interviewed. During subsequent 'sweeps' of data collection,
the main carer's
resident partner may also be invited to take part in a separate
interview. As the children become older, they may also be asked
to take part in an interview or to complete a questionnaire.
How often will
the interviews take place?
During the first phase of GUS families were
visited by an interviewer every year until the
child
reached 5 years
old. During phase 2 of GUS (from 2010) families will be visited
less frequently, at key stages in the child’s development
or just after 'transitions' (for example, after starting primary
school or secondary school).
How is the data collected?
The data is collected by a study interviewer
who conducts a face-to-face interview with the child's main
carer
and simultaneously enters their responses directly into a laptop
computer.
This system is know as CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing).
Most of the questions are interviewer-administered,
although a few use self-completion methods, with participants
reading
questions and entering responses directly into laptops (a data
collection approach known as CASI (Computer Assisted Self Interviewing).
Some data is collected directly from the children themselves.
Height and weight measurements are taken periodically. Cognitive
development is measured by asking the children to take part in
short exercises to measure their knowledge of vocabulary and their
problem solving skills.
How was the study sample selected?
The sample was drawn from Child Benefits Records
(CBR) held by the Department of Work and Pensions, which is a method
that
has been widely used for other recent studies of this kind (including
the UK Millenium Cohort Study, the Families and Children Survey,
the and the
Childcare
Survey). Since Child Benefit has a very high level of uptake, (usually
around 97%), the CBR is the best available sample for a study
of
this kind.
How many are taking part?
8,000 children were enrolled into the study in 2005-06
5,000 were babies (~10 months) born between June 2004 and May
2005
3,000 were toddlers (~34 months) born between June 2002 and May
2003.
A further 6,000 children born between March 2010 and February
2011 will be enrolled during 2010-11. Families will be visited
when
their baby is 10 months old.
What age are the children over the course of the study?
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Birth cohort 1 |
Child cohort |
Birth cohort 2 |
Findings published |
| Sweep 1 |
2005/06 |
Age 0-1 |
Age 2-3 |
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Jan 2007 |
| Sweep 2 |
2006/07 |
Age 1-2 |
Age 3-4 |
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Feb 2008 |
| Sweep 3 |
2007/08 |
Age 2-3 |
Age 4-5 |
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March 2009 |
| Sweep 4 |
2008/09 |
Age 3-4 |
Age 5-6 |
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April 2010 |
| Sweep 5 |
2009/10 |
Age 4-5 |
(Age 6-7) |
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May 2011 |
| Sweep 6 |
2010/11 |
Age 5-6 |
(Age 7-8) |
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| Sweep 1 |
2011/12 |
(Age 6-7) |
(Age 8-9) |
Age 0-1 |
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| Sweep 7 |
2012/13 |
Age 7-8 |
(Age 9-10) |
(Age 1-2) |
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(brackets show ages at which data is not collected)
Which areas of
Scotland were sampled and why?
For phase 1 of GUS, 130 areas across Scotland
were selected at random. Each area was controlled to give an average
of 57 births.
In order to accommodate a representative random
sample of children which could be accessed efficiently by the interviewers
from the study, a process known as Primary Sampling Units (PSUs)
was selected. These units enable the fieldwork to be efficiently
managed by the study’s interviewers since the selected families
are clustered in particular geographic areas. The PSUs will be based
on aggregations of Data Zones which are newly geographic units being
increasingly used as the basis of neighbourhood statistics in Scotland.
These Data Zones were randomly selected within a stratification
scheme based on region and deprivation.
Within these sample PSUs, all eligible children
are then sampled for the 0-1 cohort and 3/5ths of all eligible children
are selected for the 2-3 cohort. Where a 0-1 year old child has
a sibling aged 2-3, one child is selected at random.
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