The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) assessed their cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 16 sweep using the Mathematics Test.
Details on this measure (devised by the National Foundation for Educational Research) and the data collected from the CMs are outlined in the table below.
| Domain: | Mathematics |
| Measures: | Mathematics |
| Numerical and geometric skills | |
| CHC: | Gq (Quantitative Knowledge) |
| Administrative method: | Teacher at school; individually face to face; pen and paper |
| Procedure: | The test consisted of 31 items. The test included, number skills and geometry using 27 multiple-choice and 4 true or false questions. |
| Duration: The test was conducted under timed conditions and within time-limit (45 minutes) | |
| Link to questionnaire: | No direct link to pdf. Information can be found in the file ‘ncds3_1974_questionnaires_and_codebook.pdf’ which accompanies data download from UK Data Service website. |
| Scoring: | 31 items, each correct answer received one mark. The total of possible marks for the test was 31. |
| Item-level variable(s): | Not currently available |
| Total score/derived variable(s): | n2930 |
| Age of participant (months): | Mean = 192.52, SD = 1.36, Range = 190 - 201 |
| Descriptives: | Raw score |
| N = 11,920 | |
| Range = 0 -31 | |
| Mean = 12.76 | |
| SD = 7.00 | |
(click image to enlarge) |
|
| Other sweep and/or cohort: | None |
| Source: | Constructed by National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) specifically for use in the NCDS. |
| Technical resources: | Shepherd, P., Measures of ability at ages 7 to 16. National Child Development Study User Guide, 2012. |
| Reference examples: | Fogelman, K. (1978). School attendance, attainment and behaviour. British journal of Educational Psychology, 48(2), 148-158. |
| Jeffers, B. J., Power, C., & Hertzman, C. (2002). Birth weight, childhood socioeconomic environment, and cognitive development in the 1958 British birth cohort study. BMJ, 325(7359), 305. |
Go to:
- Overview of all cognitive measures in NCDS
- 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’.