What social connections and support are available to families and children, and what impact do they have on individual outcomes? How do the impacts of these social connections and support change over time? What are the impacts of neighbourhood characteristics and community connectedness, engagement, trust and violence on individual outcomes, and how do these impacts change over time? What is the impact of intergenerational characteristics on individual outcomes, and how does this impact change over time? Study respondents Study informants include the child (from the age of six), parents (both resident and non-resident), carers and teachers. Information from these participants is collected every two years using a range of methodologies. These include a face-to face interview and self-report by the child and one parent. The methodologies are reviewed for each collection to ensure that they protect the privacy of participants, respond to improvements in technology and reflect the increased capacity of the children to answer questions themselves. As children do more activities away from their parents, they report more information and the parent reports less; thus, the children are gradually becoming the primary respondents of the study. Mid-wave data collection Following the first three waves of the study, abridged data collection was also conducted in the years between the biennial primary data collections (Wave 1.5, Wave 2.5 and Wave 3.5). These ‘mid-wave’ collections comprised short paper questionnaires on a limited range of topics. A key purpose of the LSAC mid-wave activities is to maintain contact and engagement with the study participants. The activities—mail-out questionnaires to the primary parent (P1)—are also an opportunity to collect information on topics relevant to the developmental stage of the study children, However, response rates for these surveys were significantly lower than those of the main wave collections, and their continuing decline necessitated a review of this collection strategy. Table 1 provides details of the number of questionnaires sent and returned for each collection and illustrates the decline in mid-wave response rates over time.
Zubrick, SR 2011, ‘Language development and change: growth, patterns, and processes in the Australian longitudinal studies’, presented to Growing Up in Australia and Footprints in Time: LSAC and LSIC Research Conference, Melbourne, 15–16 November. Theses Dillon-Wallace, JA 2011, ‘Mothers of young children with special health care needs: maternal wellbeing and engagement in work’, PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology. Hancock, K 2012, ‘A longitudinal analysis of the association between overprotective parenting and the physical health of children’, MSc thesis, Swinburne University of Technology. N 2012, ‘What about Dad? How non-resident fathers influence child mental health’, Masters thesis, La Trobe University. McCormack, J 2011, ‘The extent and experience of childhood speech impairment’, PhD thesis, Charles Sturt University. Shulver, W 2012, ‘Parenting groups as sources of social capital: their patterns of use and outcomes for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal mothers of young children’, PhD thesis, Flinders University. LSAC website activities The Growing up in Australia website, , allows easy access to updates from the study. The website has areas to cater for study participants (children and parents), data users, researchers and policymakers. There continues to be interest in publications and papers based on LSAC (Table 2).
Table 2: Website visits and downloads date 2004 –05 2005 –06 2006 –07 2007 –08 2008 –09 2009 –10 2011 –12 Total site visits 57,227 85,966 107,890 155,144 182,263 202,264 202,233 260,204 14,860 19,664 37,387 51,501 55,919 88,172 94,417 127,695 2004–05 Annual Report May 2005 501 10,831 9,024 5,183 2,747 925 2,117 1,411 2005–06 Annual Report Dec 2006 8,026 4,817 1,339 426 1,755 1,293 2006–07 Annual Report June 2008 2,938 4,122 691 2,668 3,223 2007–08 Annual Report Dec 2008 1,970 998 2,509 2008–09 Annual Report Nov 2009 5,562 3,105 39 2009–10 Annual Report Feb 2011 787* 805 2010–11 Annual Report Oct 2012 2010 Annual Statistical Report Aug 2011 92,863 Discussion Paper 1 Mar 2002 3,002 17,844 15,198 4,927 3,734 2,575 12,870 9,099 Discussion Paper 2 Sep 2003 1,483 1,721 2,987 2,830 1,743 1,316 1,420 1,298 Discussion Paper 3 May 2004 10,317 10,389 9,471 9,104 1,574 1,196 8,550 4,871
Discussion Paper 5 Jun 2007 196 2,182 1,573 1,228 1,144 1,255 Technical 1 Sept 2005 2,521 3,401 4,702 8,823 6,042 4,751 6,331 Technical Paper 2 Jan 2006 2,322 1,960 1,945 1,454 1,367 1,231 1,109 Technical 3 May 2006 103 1,351 1,188 1,165 1,030 1,245 1,298 Technical Paper 4 Jul 2007 1,896 1,392 1,061 1,012 1,085 Technical Paper 5 Oct 2007 671 1,210 936 911 1,059 Technical Paper 6 Aug 2009 701 678 752 Technical Paper 9 Aug 2011 931 Study 7,928 8,257 12,431 18,589 20,699 15,286 14,551 14,199 Data Dictionary 150 2,237 2,625 1,931 2,374 1,099 2,123 2,291 *Due to a technical error the statistics for this are unavailable. This number indicates the number of PDF versions of the report that were downloaded Data access Data from Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is warehoused at AIFS and is available to researchers approved by FaHCSIA. AIFS provides user support services. Prospective users must abide by strict security and confidentiality protocols and are required to complete a dataset application and read and sign a deed of licence.