FAQs for young people, parents, and carers

How was my family chosen for this study?
What does being part of the study involve?
How can I take part?
What is involved for parents and carers?
What if I only live with my child some of the time?
What is involved for young people?
What if I need help to complete the interview/survey?
Will anyone know what I say?
How will teachers and schools be involved?
Who is carrying out the study?
Who has approved this research?
What will happen to the information I give?
Do I have to take part?
What if I change my mind after the interview?
Where can I use my voucher?
Who do I contact if I still have questions, want to seek further information, or verify the research?

How was my family chosen for this study?

The study will look at the experiences of young people all over England. We are currently inviting selected young people who are in Year 8 in the 2022/23 academic year. They will be part of a group that will represent all young people in their particular age group. Most young people have been identified through the National Pupil Database (NPD) which holds details of all pupils in English state education. Young people who attend independent schools have been identified directly through their schools.

Around 8,500 families will take part.

What does being part of the study involve?

We would like to speak to participating families who have young people in Year 8, and again each year as they move through secondary school, and possibly beyond. By taking part this time you do not commit yourself or your family to take part in the future.

Taking part is completely voluntary. If you do take part, you can change your mind and withdraw from the study at any time. You also don’t have to answer all the questions - if there are any questions you don’t want to answer, we understand and won’t ask why.

Future stages: We would like to ask you to take part again on an annual basis so we can see how the young person is getting on. We will get back in touch with you when it is time to take part again.

Please get in touch with us if your contact details change.

How can I take part?

A NatCen interviewer will visit each selected family whose address details are listed on the National Pupil Database (NPD). They will explain more about the study and what taking part involves and will be able to answer any questions you might have. They will ask parents and carers to take part in an interview and a web survey. With the parent’s or carer’s permission, they will also ask the young person to complete a short interview and some tasks to help us capture thinking skills.

See the links below for more information about what is involved for parents/carers and young people.

What is involved for parents and carers?

The interviewer will ask one mother, father or other parental carer to take part in a short ‘household’ interview. This will include the interviewer asking questions about the household and the young person selected for the study. This should take around 20 minutes.

There is no need to prepare. You don’t need any special knowledge, we just want to find out about your and your child’s lives and their experiences of school.

The interviewer will then ask up to two fathers, mothers or parental carers in the household to complete a short web survey – including the parent or carer who completes the household interview. The web surveys will be about things like parents’ education and employment, health and wellbeing, behaviours and family relationships.

If the young person selected for the study is in contact with a birth or adoptive parent who lives in a different household, we would like them to complete a short web survey too. Where applicable, the interviewer will ask for contact details for the ‘parent living elsewhere’ (such as their address, email address and/or phone number) as part of the ‘household’ interview so that we can invite them to be part of the study.

What if I only live with my child some of the time?

As part of this study, we are really interested in understanding how all parents in young people’s lives make a difference. Thus, we are really keen to hear from all parents involved in a young person’s life, even if the young person doesn’t live with them or only lives with them some of the time. Up to three parents can take part for each young person. We would like to ask Own Household Parents – that is, parents of a young person whose main address is somewhere else than the address held by the Department for Education – to complete a short web questionnaire. The survey will ask about your education and employment, health and wellbeing, behaviours and family relationships.

Participating in the survey will not affect the contact you have with your child. No information about whether or not you participate, or any details of anything you say, will be passed to your child or their other parent.

What is involved for young people?

With the parent’s or carer’s permission, the interviewer will ask the young person to take part in an interview, so we can learn about their views and experiences. They will also be asked to do some short tasks assessing memory and thinking skills. Read on below to find out about what's involved in the young person's interview and what are the short tasks that assess memory and thinking skills.

What is involved in the young person interview?

If the young person and their parent or carer are happy for the young person to take part, the interviewer will do an interview with the young person. Some of the questions will be asked by the interviewer and some will be for the young person to answer themselves on the interviewer’s laptop. This will take about 25 minutes.

The young person's interview will ask questions about things like health and wellbeing, school, friends and family, and how they spend their time. We will also ask for their mobile number and email address, if they have this, so that we can keep in touch about the study (i.e. letting them know about future stages of the study).

What are the short tasks that assess memory and thinking skills?

The young person will also be asked to complete two short activities involving memory and thinking skills. The tasks will help researchers understand more about how development at this age interacts with experiences and support at school and elsewhere, and the relationship with educational outcomes and levels of wellbeing.

These will take around 15 minutes and, ideally, should be carried out in a quiet and well-lit room, away from distractions and disruptions.

The young person will be asked to complete a memory task that involves the interviewer reading out numbers and then asking the young person to repeat the numbers, but backwards. The length of the number sequence gets longer as the activity goes on.

The young person will also be asked to complete a ‘colour-word task’ which evaluates the ability to ignore information that is not relevant to the task at hand (called ‘cognitive inhibition’). The interviewer will show the young person images that contain either coloured squares or colour words and will ask them to either name the colours or to read the words out loud as fast as they can. Sometimes, colour words will be printed in a mismatching ink colour (e.g. the word “red” will be printed in green ink instead of red ink), and the young person will be asked to ignore the word and name the colour of the ink.

Our interviewers have been given special training to carry out these exercises. Because the information from the tasks is only looked at together with information from all the young people taking part, the interviewer will not be able to give any individual feedback. The interviewer will explain more and be able to answer any questions you might have when they visit.

What if I need help to complete the interview/survey?

If you need help to complete the interview or the survey, please speak to your interviewer. The interviewer will be able to help the young person with reading out the questions on the laptop, or, if the young person prefers, the parent or carer can help too.

Will anyone know what I say?

Each person will take part in the study separately and will not know about the responses given by anyone else involved in the study.

It’s up to you if you want to talk to other people about what you tell us. However, if the interviewer hears or sees something during their visit that is a cause for concern, they may need to tell someone who can help.

How will teachers and schools be involved?

To help us understand how schools impact young people's experiences, there is also a short survey for the young person's school. This will include questions about the school and the young person’s year group as a whole, for example about things like how the school supports pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

If the young person and their parent or carer agree, we will also contact the young person’s teacher to ask them some questions. This is so that we can ask them about how the young person is getting on at school and in this way get a more complete picture of what things are like for young people, both when they’re at home and at school. You can still be part of the study without agreeing to the young person’s teacher taking part.

Who is carrying out the study?

The study is being carried out by the National Centre for Social research (NatCen), the largest independent social research organisation in Britain. We work in collaboration with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).   

Who has approved this research?

The study has been reviewed by an independent group of people called a Research Ethics Committee, to protect your safety, rights, wellbeing and dignity. This study has been given ethical approval by the NatCen Research Ethics Committee (Reference no. P17541).

What will happen to the information I give?

Once we have collected all the answers from everyone who takes part, they will be looked at together as a group, anonymously. By this we mean that there will be no names attached to the answers and we will not know which person said what. We will then write up the findings into published reports. To make the answers you give us even more useful we will attach them to data held by the young person’s school. Just like with the other information you give us, this will be done in such a way so that you can’t be identified in the data. There are more details in our privacy notice.

Do I have to take part?

No. We really hope that you will take part and give your views but if you don’t want to, that’s fine - just tell your interviewer. You can also stop the interview at any point. If there are any questions that you don't want to answer, or activities that you do not want to take part in, just let us know, and we won’t ask you why.

What if I change my mind after the interview?

If you change your mind after taking part in the interview or web survey, or if you no longer want your information to be processed, please get in touch with us as soon as possible using our contact details.

In these cases, it may be possible to remove individual responses. However, in accordance with the UK Data Protection legislation, where your data is processed under Article 6(1)(e) “processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller” and requests to withdraw your answers at a later date (for example, months or years after the interview) will not be possible. Attempts at withdrawing your information later on would impair the analysis of the results in a robust and consistent way and therefore reduce the functionality of the study.

Where can I use my voucher?

Your Love2Shop voucher can be spent in lots of different shops, such as Argos and TK Maxx. Enter your voucher code online at love2shop.co.uk

Who do I contact if I still have questions, want to seek further information, or verify the research?

As the study progresses, we will keep in touch with study families and will send you updates about what we have found out so far.

NatCen are delivering the study and can answer any questions you may have about the research and your participation. You can contact them using our contact details.

To contact DfE, you can call the main helpline on 0370 000 2288 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm) or submit your question online at the gov.uk website. Please quote ‘Growing Up in the 2020s study’.