MCS Age 11 Sweep

Sweep details

Dates January 2012 to February 2013
Age 11
Achieved samples 13,469 (cohort members); 13,287 (families)
Respondents Cohort members, parents, class teachers
Fieldwork agency Ipsos MORI
Survey mode Face-to-face and postal
Data access

Main dataset available via the UK Data Service [SN 7464]. Visit the UK Data Service website to access the data.

Description

The Age 11 Sweep was conducted during the final year of the cohort members’ primary schooling. It collected information on the cohort members’ and parents’ health, care, education, social and family circumstances.

Interviewers visited the cohort members’ homes and conducted face-to-face interviews with both resident parents. Parents also answered some questions via self-completion. Information collected from parents covered family composition, housing, parental health, employment and income, parenting attitudes and activities, alongside the cohort members’ health, including puberty, behaviour and development, schooling and child care arrangements.

Cohort members completed a paper questionnaire on their own. It covered their lives, school, relationships and attitudes, as well as more sensitive topics like smoking and drinking alcohol, bullying and anti-social behaviour.

The interviewer conducted a number of age-appropriate cognitive assessments with the cohort member. These were a verbal similarities assessment (British Abilities Scales), and two touchscreen computer-based activities developed by Cambridge Cognition from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): the Cambridge Gambling Task (to measure risk taking and decision making under uncertainty) and the Spatial Working Memory Task (to measure ability to retain spatial information).

Measurements of height, weight and body fat were taken.

Cohort members’ class teachers completed a postal questionnaire about the final year of primary school.

Permission was asked of parents to link their own economic records to their survey data.

Special features at age 11

Risky behaviours

The cohort member questionnaire included questions on risky behaviours such as smoking and drinking and anti-social behaviours.

Teacher survey

A survey of cohort members’ class teachers was conducted in England and Wales. It took the form of a short, individual mail and phone survey, and was carried out following the home-based interviews. It collected information about the cohort member’s schooling, the cohort member’s class, and teacher’s profile.

Neuro-psychological assessments

Two tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) were included for the first time: the Spatial Working Memory Task (SWM) and Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT). The SWM measures ability to preserve spatial information, and the CGT measures risk-taking behaviour and decision-making under uncertainty.

Documentation

  • User guides
  • Questionnaires
  • Technical reports
  • Data notes
  • Additional
User guides

User Guide for MCS Sweeps 1-5

User guide for Sweeps 1-5 of the Millennium Cohort Study

Date published: 02/09/2020
PDF: 2,19 MB

Download

User guide to the MCS linked health administrative datasets – Scottish Medical Records (SMR)

This user guide describes the linkage of medical records, child health reviews and prescription and immunisation records in Scotland (henceforth “Scottish Medical Records”) to cohort members’ data in the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS).

Date published: 15/02/2021
PDF: 313,94 KB

Download

MCS User Guide to the Linked Education Administrative Datasets

This user guide accompanies the datasets linking education data to the records of MCS participants based in England.

Version 3 (November 2024)

Date published: 25/11/2024
PDF: 990,4 KB

Download

Longitudinal Family File Guide

This guide provides information about the mcs_longitudinal_family_file which is an important dataset of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS).

Date published: 02/09/2020
PDF: 166,27 KB

Download

MCS Data Handling Guide

The Data Handling guide explains the data structures of MCS and provides solutions with different data handling strategies.

Date published: 02/09/2020
PDF: 1,14 MB

Download

MCS 9 Months-Age 11 Guide to the Datasets (Eighth Edition)

Eighth Edition of MCS User Guide to the Datasets

Date published: 01/02/2014
PDF: 934,04 KB

Download

MCS 9 Months-Age 11 Guide to psychological and developmental inventories

Guide to the psychological and developmental inventories in MCS, covering 9 months old to age 11.

Date published: 05/01/2015
PDF: 741,77 KB

Download

Handling missing data in the CLS cohort studies – User Guide

This user guide aims to describe and illustrate a straightforward approach to missing data handling, while detailing some more general considerations around missing data along the way.

Date published: 03/06/2024
PDF: 1000,62 KB

Download
Questionnaires

MCS Age 11 Child Self-Completion Questionnaire: England

Child self-completion questionnaire for MCS5 conducted in England.

Date published: 01/05/2011
PDF: 1,55 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Child Self-Completion Questionnaire: Wales

Child self-completion questionnaire for MCS5 conducted in Wales

Date published: 01/05/2011
PDF: 1,57 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Teacher Questionnaire: England

Teacher survey for MCS5 surveys conducted in England

Date published: 01/05/2011
PDF: 284,66 KB

Download

MCS Age 11 Teacher Questionnaire: Wales

Teacher survey for MCS5 surveys conducted in Wales

Date published: 01/05/2011
PDF: 295,58 KB

Download

MCS Age 11 Household and Main/Partner CAPI Questionnaire Documentation

The Millennium Cohort Study Sweep 5 (MCS5) Main Stage was carried out using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and computer-assisted self interviewing (CASI), both scripted in the software package Quancept. This document is the paper documentation of the computer-based script.

Date published: 01/05/2011
PDF: 1,87 MB

Download
Technical reports

MCS Age 11 Technical Report on Response

This report explores attrition in sweep 5 (age 11) of MCS and presents the procedures used in the construction of the sweep 5 unit non-response weights

Date published: 01/04/2014
PDF: 262,95 KB

Download

MCS Age 11 Technical Report

This report contains details of the design and conduct of the In-home survey for the fifth sweep of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS5).The teacher survey is subject to a separate technical report and so is not discussed further in this report, the exception being the consents collected in relation to it.

Date published: 01/05/2013
PDF: 726,24 KB

Download

MCS Age 11 Teacher Survey Technical Report

Technical report of the teacher survey for MCS5

Date published: 01/05/2013
PDF: 10,04 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Dress Rehearsal Technical Report

Technical Report for the dress rehearsal of MCS5

Date published: 01/10/2012
PDF: 349,05 KB

Download
Data notes

MCS Age 11 Interpreting the CANTAB cognitive measures

The 5th sweep of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS5) introduced the cohort to two cognitive tests drawn from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, the Spatial Working Memory task (SWM) and Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT).

Date published: 01/01/2015
PDF: 585,11 KB

Download

MCS Geographical Identifiers

Geographic Identifiers in MCS

Date published: 01/06/2009
PDF: 45,77 KB

Download
Additional

MCS Age 11 Initial Findings from the Survey (Web Version)

This volume presents initial findings on a number of key topics arising from the fifth survey of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), carried out when the children were aged around 11 years.

Date published: 01/11/2014
PDF: 3,6 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Dress Rehearsal Appendices

Appendices for the dress rehearsal of MCS5

Date published: 01/05/2013
PDF: 25,26 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Appendices: Section 1

Appendices: Section 1 for the MCS age 11 sweep

Date published: 20/05/2013
PDF: 11,31 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Appendices: Section 2

Appendices: Section 2 for the MCS age 11 sweep

Date published: 20/05/2013
PDF: 20,86 MB

Download

MCS Age 11 Appendices: Section 3

Appendices: Section 3 for the MCS age 11 sweep

Date published: 20/05/2013
PDF: 18,17 MB

Download

MCS Ethical Review and Consent

This note reports on the approach adopted to ethical review and informed consent for the various stages of the Millennium Cohort Study.

Date published: 01/02/2019
PDF: 7,98 MB

Download
Contact us

Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute

20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL

Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk

Follow us