The review of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) commenced in June 2013, The intention was that the review should make no assumptions about value for money, continuation or structure. A review of this kind has not been undertaken since the commencement of LSAY in 1995, although evaluations of its effectiveness and efficiency were completed in 2000 and 2010. The aim of this report is to provide systematic evidence to underpin decision making on the future of LSAY by : Making an objective assessment of the value for money and limitations of LSAY as presently constituted to policy makers, researchers and the wider community, Identifying the feasibility, implications and cost of enhancements or changes, including improvements to make LSAY a better and more agile policy tool; and Identifying options, timelines and, where possible, costs for continuance or discontinuance. The different methodologies used in the review were : Reviewing existing documentation, survey users, interview stakeholders, literature review, analysis of data and statistics, different case studies, review of LSAY in Australia and overseas in relation to youth and a technical and cost analysis for different options to enhance LSAY. [Executive summary, ed]

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) follow several cohorts of young Australians as they move through secondary school, into further study, work and other destinations. The LSAY datasets provide an evidence-based capacity for sophisticated exploration of policy and research questions through insights into individual changes, transitions and trajectories across the life-course of young Australians. This article aims to provide an update on the progress of LSAY, including its history, evolution of the sample, sample maintenance activities, updates to the information collected, developments to the survey, the many uses that have been made of the data and possible enhancements.

The Commonwealth Department of Education commissioned the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to assess the value and implications of eight enhancements to the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). The objective of LSAY is to track young Australians as they move from school into further study, work and other destinations to provide a meaningful dataset through which to understand youth transitions. Enhancements to LSAY are considered in this paper in the context of continuing to enable researchers to track young people over time and examine relationships between the variables that impact youth transitions. [VOCED, published abstract].

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) is a research program that tracks young people as they move from school into further study, work and other destinations. It uses large, nationally representative samples of young people to collect information about education and training, work, and social development. It includes surveys conducted from the mid-1970s through to the mid-1990s: the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS); the Australian Longitudinal Survey (ALS); the Australian Youth Survey (AYS); and the current LSAY collection, which began in 1995. This User guide has been developed for users of the LSAY data. The guide endeavours to consolidate existing technical documentation and other relevant information into a single document, thereby improving data accessibility and promoting wider use of the LSAY data.