NCJ Number
96084
Date Published
1981
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This document from the Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth, 1980, contains a summary study description and discussions of research design and procedures, sampling, content areas and questionnaire information, processing information, weighting information, and file structure.
Abstract
Two general types of tasks can be distinguished in the Monitoring the Future Project, 1980, designed to explore changes in many important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth: to provide a systematic and accurate description of the youth population of interest in a given year, quantifying the direction and rate of the changes taking place among them over time; and to explain the observed relationships and trends. The basic research design involves annual data collections from high school seniors during the spring of each year, beginning with the class of 1975. Each data collection task occurs in approximately 125 public and private high schools. The multistage procedure for securing a nationwide sample calls for the selection of particular geographic areas, one or more high schools in each area, and seniors within each high school. Drug use and related attitudes receive the most extensive coverage, but the questionnaires also deal with a wide range of subject areas. Survey data of this sort might fall short of being fully representative in four ways: some sampled schools refuse to participate; a 100 percent response to the questionnaire cannot be obtained from the students sampled in participating schools; answers provided by students are open to conscious and unconscious distortions, which could reduce validity; and sample size and design limitations could restrict the accuracy of estimates. The data are available from Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research as six OSIRIS III logical record length or as card-image data sets. Sources of additional information on project methodology are listed.