Tracking children's development over time: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children Outcome Indices, Waves 2 and 3

This paper outlines the development of the Outcome Indices for Waves 2 and 3 of Growing Up In Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC).¹

LSAC's extensive data collection provides a large range of measures on many different aspects of children's functioning, which are needed for answering important questions about child development. The LSAC Outcome Indices are designed to be simple, user-friendly summaries of key child development measures as a tool for communicating otherwise complex research findings for policy-makers, the media, the general public and other data users. The Wave 1 Outcome Indices were published with the initial release of the LSAC data in April 2005. Hence, they have been in the public domain for some time, and have received considerable use and scrutiny. With the release of Waves 2 and 3 data, longitudinal and cross-cohort comparisons of child outcomes are possible. These factors have led to the revision of the Wave 1 Outcome Indices in conjunction with the development of the Wave 2 and 3 Outcome Indices. As such, this paper is intended to describe the construction of the Outcome Indices for Waves 1, 2 and 3 data, as at the time of Wave 3 data release. Except when noted, all analyses presented in this paper use weighted data.

More detail on the construction of the original Wave 1 Outcome Indices can be found in LSAC Technical Paper No. 2 (Sanson, Misson, & the Outcome Index Working Group, 2005), available from the LSAC website <www.aifs.gov.au/growingup>. When reading this paper, it should be noted that changes to the original indices have occurred since its publication (see Appendix A for more detail on the rationale for these changes).

1 LSAC is funded as part of the Australian Government's Stronger Families and Communities Strategy by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). The first three waves of the study were undertaken in partnership with the Australian Institute of Family Studies, with advice being provided by a consortium of leading researchers at research institutions and universities throughout Australia. The data collection for Waves 2-4 of LSAC was carried out for the Institute by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Authors

Sebastian Misson, at the time of writing, was the Data Manager for LSAC at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Professor Ann Sanson is at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne. Ann was at the Australian Institute of Family Studies from 2000 to 2004, holding the roles of Principal Research Fellow, Deputy Director and Acting Director. As LSAC Project Director, she also led the early development work on LSAC. She now fills the role of LSAC Principal Scientific Adviser, and leads the LSAC Child Functioning Design Team.

Associate Professor Donna Berthelsen is a researcher in the Centre for Learning Innovation and a lecturer in the School of Early Childhood at Queensland University of Technology. She is the leader of the LSAC Education Design Team.

Associate Professor Melissa Wake is Director of the Research and Public Health Unit at the Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and leader of the LSAC Health Design Team.

Dr Helen Rogers is a Principal Researcher/Section Manager in the Research and Analysis Brach of the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Dr Sheldon Rothman is a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, where he manages the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth project.

Mark Sipthorp is the Data Manager for LSAC at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

LSAC Research Consortium

The LSAC Research Consortium comprises: Dr John Ainley, Professor Michael Bittman, Dr Bruce Bradbury, Dr Linda Harrison, Associate Professor Jan Nicholson, Dr Bryan Rodgers, Professor Michael Sawyer, Associate Professor Ann Sanson, Professor Sven Silburn, Dr Lyndall Strazdins, Associate Professor Judy Ungerer, Professor Graham Vimpani and Professor Steve Zubrick.