Search results

The Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort consists of teacher ratings of their students' personalities. John M. (Jack) Digman orchestrated the collection of the child personality data between 1959 and 1967, during his tenure as a professor at the University of Hawaii. Childhood data was collected on 2418 children in classrooms on the islands of Oahu and Kauai. Six waves of data collection were completed, and eighty-eight teachers provided assessments of their students. Children ranged in age from 5 to 14, and were in grades 1,2,3,5 or 6.

The initial goal of this work was to generate ratings using a broad set of items to allow for research on the structure of personality in childhood. The data collection predated the acceptance of the Big Five model of personality. Items were selected to capture the entire range of observable personality, which at the time was thought to be characterized by 10 or more domains. Subsequent analysis by Dr. Digman, and later by Lewis R. (Lew) Goldberg, demonstrated a consistent five factor structure in the child personality data. In the early days of the emergence of the Big Five model of personality structure, the Hawaii child data provided initial evidence to support the acceptance of Big Five model of personality.

Subsequent follow-up of the sample in adulthood has included multiple questionnaires, and assessments of objective markers of health. These follow-up data allowed for the first ever assessment of the stability in the Big Five over a span of 40 years. At average age 50, participants were recruited for a half day clinic visit. Objective markers of health collected at this time have supported work testing childhood personality as a predictor of physical health, and also research testing lifespan pathways linking childhood personality to physical health in adulthood.

This initial release includes the full childhood cohort data. Also included are a set of Big Five scores that have been used in published research on the Hawaii Personality Cohort, and a number of different sets of personality scales derived from these data. Basic demographic information is also provided. Subsequent data releases will include questionnaire and clinic data collected in adulthood.

For additional information about the correspondence between these datasets, please see the accompanying Excel file, which provides a table of overlapping variables across the datasets. Further information about this crosswalk file can be found in the "Item Overlap" section of the accompanying Study Description document.

Demographic variables included in this study include gender, cultural identity, and year of birth.

The Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) is a project that was funded by the National Science Foundation in 1985 and was designed to examine the development of: (1) student attitudes toward and achievement in science, (2) student attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics, and (3) student interest in and plans for a career in science, mathematics, or engineering, during middle school, high school, and the first four years post-high school. The relative influence parents, home, teachers, school, peers, media, and selected informal learning experiences had on these developmental patterns was considered as well.

The older LSAY cohort, Cohort One, consisted of a national sample of 2,829 tenth-grade students in public high schools throughout the United States. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, ending four years after high school in 1994. Cohort Two, consisted of a national sample of 3,116 seventh-grade students in public schools that served as feeder schools to the same high schools in which the older cohort was enrolled. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, concluding with a telephone interview approximately one year after the end of high school in 1994.

Beginning in the fall of 1987, the LSAY collected a wide array of information including: (1) a science achievement test and a mathematics achievement test each fall, (2) an attitudinal and experience questionnaire at the beginning and end of each school year, (3) reports about education and experience from all science and math teachers in each school, (4) reports on classroom practice by each science and math teacher serving a LSAY student, (5) an annual 25-minute telephone interview with one parent of each student, and (6) extensive school-level information from the principal of each study school.

In 2006, the NSF funded a proposal to re-contact the original LSAY students (then in their mid-30's) to resume data collection to determine their educational and occupational outcomes. Through an extensive tracking activity which involved: (1) online tracking, (2) newsletter mailing, (3) calls to parents and other relatives, (4) use of alternative online search methods, and (5) questionnaire mailing, more than 95 percent of the original sample of 5,945 LSAY students were located or accounted for. In addition to re-contacting the students, the proposal defined a new eligible sample of approximately 5,000 students and these young adults were asked to complete a survey in 2007. A second survey was conducted in the fall of 2008 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the civic scientific literacy of these young adults, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A third survey was conducted in the fall of 2009 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the participants' use of selected informal science education resources, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A fourth survey was conducted in the fall of 2010 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes, as well as provided questions about the participants' interactions with their children, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. Finally, a fifth survey was conducted in the fall of 2011 that sought to gather updated information about education outcomes and included an expanded occupation battery for all participants, as well as an expanded spousal information battery for all participants. The 2011 questionnaire also included items about the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan along with attitudinal items about nuclear power and global climate change. To date approximately 3,200 participants responded to the 2011 survey.

There were no surveys conducted in 2012 or 2013. Beginning in 2014 the LSAY was funded by the National Institute on Aging for five years. This data release adds the 2017 data to the previous data release that included data through 2016.

The public release data files include information collected from the national probability sample students, their parents, and the science and mathematics teachers in the students' schools. The data covers the initial seven years, beginning in the fall of 1987, as well as the data collected in the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 questionnaires.

Part 1: LSAY Merged Cohort (Base File) contains student and parent data from both cohorts of the LSAY from 1987-1994 and student follow-up data from 2007-2011 and 2014-2017. Additionally, Parts 2 - 5 contain information gathered from two teacher background questionnaires and two principal questionnaires from 1987-1994.