The Youth Cohort Study (YCS) is a major programme of longitudinal research designed to monitor the behaviour and decisions of representative samples of young people aged sixteen upwards as they make the transition from compulsory education to further or higher education, or to the labour market. It tries to identify and explain the factors which influence post-16 transitions, for example, educational attainment, training opportunities, experiences at school. To date the YCS covers thirteen cohorts and over forty surveys. The first cohort was first surveyed in 1985 and the thirteenth in 2007. The questionnaires have been designed, over the years, to be broadly comparable, but external changes and shifts in policy interest have brought about changes - some minor, some fundamental. Cohorts One to Twelve cover England and Wales but a change to the methodology means that from Cohort Thirteen, data cover England only. For further details of the methodology and coverage, see the documentation. The UK Data Archive currently holds data for the cohorts listed below:Cohort One (SN 3093) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1983-84Cohort Two (SN 3094) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1984-85*Cohort Three (SN 3012) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1985-86Cohort Four (SN 3107) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1987-88Cohort Five (SN 3531) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1989-90Cohort Six (SN 3532) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1990-91Cohort Seven (SN 3533) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1992-93Cohort Eight (SN 3805) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1995-96Cohort Nine (SN 4009) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1996-97Cohort Ten (SN 4571) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 1998-99Cohort Eleven (SN 5452) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 2000-01Cohort Twelve (SN 5830) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 2002-03Cohort Thirteen (SN 6024) surveyed those eligible to leave school in 2005-06*Some teaching materials using the data from Cohort Three have been developed. Details are available from the Teaching Resources and Materials for Social Scientists (TRAMSS) website. Sweeps One to Four mainly focused on identifying respondents' economic activity, their qualifications gained and sought, current work details as well as some background information about their families and a small amount of attitudinal and background information. In addition, a sub-sample for Sweeps One to Three were asked extra questions to evaluate the new Connexions service launched in 2001. This service aims to provide young people with guidance, support and advice in their decision-making about the future. The Connexions questionnaire covers: awareness of Connexions service contact with Connexions questions about Careers service (if not aware of Connexions) advice received assessments of Connexions Sweeps Two and Three also involved taking a sub-sample of high-achieving respondents (using information from the first sweep) and asking them about their experiences, views and attitudes towards higher education. All cohort members who had achieved Level 2 qualifications by the end of Year 11 and who had responded to the Higher Education (HE) telephone module at Sweep Two received the core questionnaire and the HE module, covering: those currently in HE: entry routes and changes of plan since C11S2 current experiences/difficulties of HE and information available student finances sources and coping strategies career plans and HE those not in HE: future likelihood and current activities gap years those not in HE: likelihood of future HE entry and attitudes towards HE In Sweep Four there were no additional questions for these sub-samples and these respondents were included in the main sample.