Longitudinal Research on Children's Development: Report

This report presents the results of the fiscal 2024 initiative commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, titled “Initiatives to Improve Education Policies Using Official Statistical Surveys and Other Sources.” Based on results through the 22nd wave of the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in 2001, it conducted analyses contributing to education policy planning and examined retrospective items in anticipation of the period from the 16th wave onward of the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in 2010.

The analysis covered reading habits, extracurricular lessons, job hunting, and changes in school attendance and employment status, while retrospective items were examined through a literature review and interviews with experts.

This research study is related to obtaining basic data that contributes to education policy planning and to analyses focusing on children's development and their experiences at school.

It states that future analyses of continuity after entering employment and changes from situations in which individuals are neither attending school nor employed would contribute to education policy planning.

The reading analysis confirmed positive associations between reading books, novels, and picture books and self-esteem, perseverance, psychological resilience, and mental health, as well as some negative associations with magazines and manga. The extracurricular lessons analysis confirmed positive associations with non-cognitive skills, particularly for sports-related activities. The job-hunting analysis tabulated associations between non-cognitive skills and whether participants had received an informal job offer and the number of companies involved. Based on observational data, these findings do not directly demonstrate causal relationships.

For retrospective items, inaccurate memories, subjective bias, the validity of measurement items, and respondent burden were identified as challenges. At the same time, the advantages of efficiently understanding past experiences and enabling respondents to reflect on sensitive experiences were also demonstrated. No basis for setting the retrospective period could be confirmed, and the question content, timing, format, and allocation need to be considered.