BCS70 – Child of CM (Multi-Age) – British Abilities Scales II (BAS II) School Aged Exercises: Spelling

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) assessed the children of cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 34 sweep using the Spelling measure from the British Ability Scales (BAS).

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 BAS Spelling measure was administered as part of a set of ‘School Age’ exercises (for children aged between 6 and 16 years and 11 months). Details on this measure and the data collected are outlined in the table below.

Year of data collection:	2004
Domain:	School knowledge – spelling (achievement scale)
Measures:	Spelling achievement:
	Visual memory for correct spelling of whole words
	Knowledge of phoneme-to-grapheme mapping
	Knowledge of spelling rules
CHC:	Gc (Crystallised)
	Grw (Reading/Writing)
CLOSER Source:	Not currently available in CLOSER Discovery
Administrative method:	Writing and speaking; interviewer enters onto computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI)
Procedure:	All children within a defined age band received a fixed number of words. The child spells the word, then reads their answer to the interviewer, who enters correct or incorrect into CAPI. A stopping rule of 5 failures in a row was applied.
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 new tab)
Scoring:	38 words in total, start and finish point based on age of child. Number of words varied by age:
	age 6 years – 6 years 11 months = 15 words (1 – 15)
	age 7 years – 8 years 11 months = 20 words (6 – 25)
	age 9 years – 10 years 11 months = 20 words (11 – 30)
	age 11 years – 16 years 11 months = 28 words (11 – 38)
Item-level variable(s):	bassp01 – bassp15 (age 6 years – 6 years 11 months)
	bassp06 – bassp25 (age 7 years – 8 years 11 months)
	bassp11 – bassp30 (age 9 years – 10 years 11 months)
	bassp11-bassp38 (age 11 years – 16 years 11 months)
Total score/derived variable(s):	basspR (raw score)
	bassp1hr (revised score – maximum of 100)
Age of participants (months):	Mean = 117.71, SD = 32.97, Range = 72 – 203
Descriptives:		basspR (raw score)	bassp1hr (revised score – max. of 100)
	N	2,248	2,248
	Range	0 – 28	0 – 100
	Mean	13.34	59.91
	SD	5.56	21.91
		(click image to enlarge)	(click image to enlarge)
Other sweep and/or cohort:	None
Source:	Modified version (reduced number of words from 75 to 38 by using the first 5 in 10 of 7 blocks and 3 of 5 of the last block of BAS) of:
	Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1996). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Administration and Scoring Manual. London: Nelson.
	Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1997). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Technical Manual. London: Nelson.
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. NRDC: London. (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)
Example articles:	Crawford, C., Goodman, A., & Joyce, R. (2011). Explaining the socio-economic gradient in child outcomes: the inter-generational transmission of cognitive skills. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 2(1), 77-93.