Wollongong Youth Study

The Wollongong Youth Study (WYS) is a longitudinal study of over 800 teenagers in Wollongong and metropolitan Sydney, Australia. With the support of the Australian Research Council (2004-2006) and the on-going support of the Wollongong Catholic Diocese, the WYS commenced in 2003 when students entered high school. The broad aim of this research is to identify the key psychological factors that put adolescents at risk of poor emotional, social, behavioural, and academic well-being. We currently survey students once a year. They provide valuable data on attitudes, feelings, and personality. We also have access to sociometric ratings provided by the students, observers’ reports of behaviour, scores on standardized verbal and numerical tests, as well as end-of-year school grades for each subject. 

We plan to:

• Identify the factors that lead young people to experience poor social and emotional well-being;
• Identify the factors that lead young people to under-achieve;
• Ultimately, we hope our work will lead to interventions that improve young people's lives.