아동패널조사 모형개발 연구

Abstract

Public awareness of the importance of children"s experiences during their formative years has increased. Accordingly, the Panel Study of Korean Children (PSKC) was designed to provide researchers, decision-makers, childcare providers and teachers with longitudinal information about children"s early developmental and life experiences. Specifically, PSKC was proposed to comprehensively answer the many questions concerning relationships between children’s developmental characteristics and experiences provided them by parents, families, non-maternal caregivers and early childhood programs (including childcare centers and kindergartens) and their developmental outcomes. In particular, children who will represent national averages will be followed from birth through elementary school in order to provide longitudinal secondary data.

In 2006, the study design and planning of PSKC, including sampling design, research methods, research variables, and data collection schedule, were completed. In accordance with the above-mentioned objectives, a number of methods employed in this research included reviews of previous panel studies, major longitudinal studies with birth cohorts, field visits, and a series of meetings and workshops with experts. In particular, sampling design was outsourced to the Korean Association of Survey Research.

The study design of PSKC involves the following:

The first data collections will begin in 2008. Accordingly, the population of PSKC will comprise children born in the year 2008 in Korea, particularly from March to May. The sample will involve 3,000 children born at a hospital in Korea during the same time period. Because PSKC conducts large-scale, nationally representative, sample surveys using multi-stage sampling techniques without over-sampling, the sampling frame, that is the list of hospitals for delivery, is first stratified by region. The number of hospitals selected by region and the number of children recruited from each hospital are then decided based on the proportion of regional hospitals.

This sample constitutes the main study of PSCK, which will be implemented during all of the waves, that is, each year from 2008 to 2014, and additional studies will be conducted in 2016 and 2019 after the children’s middle and high school entries. Accordingly, the total number of waves included in the main research will be seven. In the main study, a questionnaire of the children’s primary caregivers will be employed. Administration of the questionnaire will be implemented by a data collection contractor.

Ten percent of the sample subjects will participate in an in-depth study by the PSCK, for supplementary research. When the children reach 18 months old, are entered into a preschool or daycare center (4 years old), and enter elementary school (6 years old), the supplementary study will be implemented using a variety of methods including observations, tests and interviews by a research team located throughout regional universities.

As for the components and variables, PSKC, which begins with a birth cohort, will comprehensively examine the children’s physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and language development and their life experiences, such as daily routines, special practices, and so on. In addition to these features, the characteristics of the children’s environments, including parents, families, secondary caregivers like nannies, kindergartens and daycare centers, communities and national policies supporting early childhood education and care will be included.