How do we capture 15 years of complex and meaningful data about young people's lives?

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a method of data collection, which captures the complexity of living situations, family dynamics and key life events of teenagers. This 'Life History Calendar' was adapted from earlier life history calendar methods for a multidisciplinary intergenerational study. The new calendar is able to record details of 15 years of teenage participants' lives and can be administered to teenagers and their parents to show changes over individual lives and difference between individuals in a cohort. Referring to some preliminary data, we show that the calendar is a practical and effective method of data collection, which will be useful to researchers and practitioners working with young people and their families.

Changes to family structure, household composition and address among young New Zealanders: an update

“…The life history calendar (LHC) is a chart capturing the people that the Next Generation Study participant lived with, and where they lived between birth and their fifteenth birthday (180 months of data). Trained interviewers guided participants through a description their lives using the LHC as a visual aid (Sligo et al 2011(Sligo et al , 2017.…”

The dynamic, complex and diverse living and care arrangements of young New Zealanders: implications for policy

“…The life history calendar (LHC) is a chart capturing who the teenager lived with and where between birth and their fifteenth birthday; and records important life events. Using a semistructured protocol, the LHC was completed with the teenage participant and the primary caregiver parent by trained interviewers in different rooms (see Sligo et al 2011). These data are from the parental LHCs because these have more complete information about teen participants' early lives.…”