The National Science Foundation has awarded U-M researchers $2.5 million over a five-year period to form the Center for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood at the Institute for Social Research (ISR).
The center will analyze data on more than 130,000 individuals from 20 large-scale, long-range research projects to answer key questions about successful development.
“Initially we will focus on finding out if middle childhood—the period between ages 5 and 12—is a pivotal period in development, as we think it may be,” says Pamela Davis-Kean, a psychologist who will direct the new center. “We will also look at what kinds of childhood influences matter the most, and how much personal characteristics such as temperament, intelligence and gender affect positive and negative outcomes and cross-generational similarities and differences.”
Finding answers to these kinds of broad questions that are of interest to parents and teachers as well as research scientists depends on access to many large data sets that span, in some cases, almost four decades, says ISR research scientist L. Rowell Huesmann, the principal investigator of the project. “Although the factors examined in any one project may be limited, by studying data from many projects we can examine a wide range of childhood influences,” Huesmann says.
U-M psychologists Jacquelynne Eccles and Eric Dubow, who also is at Bowling Green State University, are co-principal investigators, along with Davis-Kean.
The center will develop and use new statistical approaches to analyze the data from many projects, including the ISR Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Survey and the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study. Studies from Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom also are included.
“After several decades of productive yet fragmented research, it’s exciting to be able to join with other experts around the country and the world to integrate our analyses,” Davis-Kean says. “Our common goal is to understand what matters most in moving from childhood to adult success, and to let parents and educators know what they can do to improve the odds for success.”
