The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) assessed the children of cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 34 sweep using the Copying Designs Test.
When the CM was aged 34, child assessments were conducted with the cohort member’s children. Each of the CM’s eligible children were asked to complete three exercises designed to measure a range of verbal and numerical abilities. Although dependent on the child’s age and abilities, each set of exercises was expected to take an average of 20 minutes to complete.
The Copying Designs Test measure was administered as part of a set of ‘Early Years’ exercises (for children aged between 3 and 5 years and 11 months). Details on this measure and the data collected are outlined in the table below.
| Year of data collection: | 2004 |
| Domain: | Visual spatial |
| Measures: | Ability to reproduce shapes |
| CHC: | Gv (Visual processing) |
| CLOSER Source: | Not currently available in CLOSER Discovery |
| Administrative method: | Child shown picture on computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI), draws design in booklet |
| Procedure: | The child was shown a series of 8 line drawings and asked to make two copies of the shape, as accurately as possible. There were no discontinuation rules, interviewers were asked to encourage the child to attempt all eight designs, but should stop if the child was distressed or if they stopped attempting to copy. (This exercise was not part of the BAS II, but had been completed by the cohort members themselves when they were age 5.) |
| Link to questionnaire: | No link to the questionnaire, but user guide available: https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BCS70-2004-Guide-to-Child-Assessments.pdf (opens in a new tab) |
| Scoring: | Each drawing was scored 0 or 1. Neatness was not considered, but the drawings must have been the correct general shape, approximately symmetrical, not rotated, and with lines approximately meeting. As not all children completed two copies a score of 1 was given if at least one copy is good. Total score is the sum of the score for the individual drawings. More information about the scoring is available in the “Link to questionnaire” document, in Appendix A3. |
| Item-level variable(s): | No data available (tests not coded) |
| Total score/derived variable(s): | None |
| Age of participants (months): | No data available |
| Descriptives: | None |
| Other sweep and/or cohort: | BCS70 – Age 5 – Copying Designs Test |
| NCDS – Age 7 – Copying Designs Test (6 designs) | |
| NCDS – Age 11 – Copying Designs Test (6 designs) |
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| Source: | Osborn, A. F., Butler, N. R., & Morris, A. C. (1984). The Social Life of Britain's Five Year Olds: A report of the Child Health and Education Study. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. |
| Technical resources: | Parsons, S., Bynner, J. & Foudouli, V. (2005). Measuring basic skills for longitudinal study: the design and development of instruments for use with cohort members in the age 34 follow-up in the 1970 British Cohort Study. London: NRDC. (Link opens in a new tab) |
| Parsons, S. (2006). British Cohort Study 2004 Follow up: Guide to Child Assessment Data, CLS Working Paper. (Link opens in a new tab) | |
| Reference examples: | None |
Go to:
- Overview of all cognitive measure in BCS70
- Overview of childhood cognitive measures across all studies
This page is part of CLOSER’s ‘A guide to the cognitive measures in five British birth cohort studies’.