What's involved?

Interaction between participants and research sites/ universities (film!)

1. Informing the school and responsible staff about the study

As a first step, we would like to get in contact with your school to arrange a meeting with the head and the teaching staff interested in our project.

In this meeting we would like to give a short presentation of the core features of the project and explain in more detail what your school could do in order to give support. This would involve helping to recruit 14 years old pupils to participate in our study. Any of your questions and concerns will be addressed in detail.

2. Informing students about the study

Once your school has decided to support the European research project, we would like to come to your school again and present the study to the students in years 9. We will show a short film clip about the participants' journey which is also available on this website (see link).

Furthermore, we then would like to distribute an informational package for the student and their parent or guardian. This will contain student and a parent information sheets, a short questionnaire for the parents, a contact details form as well as consent forms for the child and the parent. Once these have been sent back to our research team, we will decide whether to include the child in the study on the basis of the answers to the parents' questionnaire.

3. Study participation

Once a student is included, he or she will take part in the assessments; one at home and one at our research institute.

This participants' journey is described in more detail on the web-pages specifically addressed to students or their parents. (link)

But in short: the assessment will involve the following procedures:

  • a home computer assessment of questionnaires and reaction time tasks for the pupil
  • a visit at the research centre of the pupil and their parent or guardian:
  • neuroimaging for the child using a magnetic resonance tomograph
  • behavioural tasks for the child
  • an interview with the child about their behaviour, feelings and attitudes
  • a blood sample taken from the child
  • computerised questionnaires for the parent about themselves and their child
  • an interview with the parent about the family and the child's behaviour

4. Follow-up:

About 2 years after these assessments we will interview all participants over the telephone about their behaviour over the follow-up period.

5. Results

In 2010, final results from this study will be available and sent to your school if you wish us to do so.
Regular newsletters will be posted on the website and sent to you.