Growing Up in Ireland - the National Longitudinal Study of Children, is the first survey of its kind ever undertaken in Ireland and, as such, aims to explore the many and varied factors that contribute to or undermine the wellbeing of children currently living there. A two age cohort longitudinal design was adopted with one cohort of 11,134 infants (aged nine months) and the other of 8,568 nine-year olds, with a view to improving and understanding of children’s development across a range of domains. Since the survey is longitudinal in nature respondents in both cohorts are interviewed on a number of occasions over the folowing few years. The 8,568 children representing the nine-year cohort were born between 1st November 1997 and 31st October 1998. The nine year cohort and their parents/guardians were interviewed for a second time at thirteen years of age. Data collection for the second wave at 13 years took place between August 2011 and March 2012 and resulted in a completed datafile of 7,525 cases.

Probability: Stratified: Proportional A two-stage design was adopted. In the first instance a random sample of Primary Schools was recruited and at the second stage a sample of nine-year old children was selected from the sample of schools. The design required that the sample be regionally representative with no spatial bias. In addition, no oversampling or booster sampling of subgroups was required. There was a total of 56,497 nine-year-olds registered in the Census of Population in 2006 so a sample size of 8,568 represented approximately 14 percent or about 1 in every 7 of the nine-year-olds resident in the country.

Face-to-face interview: CAPI/CAMI

Self-administered questionnaire: Computer-assisted (CASI)