DOI: 10.3886/icpsr25422.v1
title: Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of American Youth (8th- and 10th-Grade Surveys), 2008
title: Version 1

description: These surveys of 8th- and 10th-grade students are part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students in each grade are randomly assigned to complete one of four questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions but containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and drug use. There are more than 450 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by this survey include amphetamines (stimulants), barbiturates (tranquilizers), other prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, inhalants, steroids, marijuana, hashish, LSD, hallucinogens, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, methamphetamine, and injectable drugs such as heroin.
description: Each of the eight parts contains a weight variable, V5. They were originally varied by school but were modified to protect respondent confidentiality. Users should use the weight variable for all analyses, the results of which will differ slightly from published data tables that used original data.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Standardized missing values.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: The student response rates for the 2008 8th- and 10th-grade surveys were 90 percent and 88 percent, respectively.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: 8th-Grade Form 1 Data 
 DS2: 8th-Grade Form 2 Data 
 DS3: 8th-Grade Form 3 Data 
 DS4: 8th-Grade Form 4 Data 
 DS5: 10th-Grade Form 1 Data 
 DS6: 10th-Grade Form 2 Data 
 DS7: 10th-Grade Form 3 Data 
 DS8: 10th-Grade Form 4 Data
description: Monitoring the Future (MTF) Series
description: on-site questionnaire 
This study was conducted by the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
In 2005, two of the questionnaire forms had a new version of the race question. It included Hispanic as one of the categories in addition to Black and White. For 2008, all four forms had this new version for the race variable.
To protect the anonymity of respondents, all variables that could be used to identify individuals have been collapsed or recoded in the public use files. These modifications should not affect analytic uses of the public use files.
Variables omitted from the Western region questionnaires are noted in each codebook.
A user guide is provided with the study documentation. It contains two year-to-year cross-time question indices for the MTF 8th- and 10th-grade surveys. The first is sorted by subject area and the second is sorted by question location.
Frequency and percentage distributions displayed in the 2008 codebooks are unweighted, rather than weighted by variable V5 as they had been in previous years. This change was made to simplify both the production of the codebooks and their interpretation by the analyst.
 MTF does not release detailed geography codes in its public use files because of the disclosure risk it would cause. The MTF sample is drawn to generate representative samples of the four Census Bureau regions of the country (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West), but it does not generate representative samples of smaller geographic areas such as states, counties, or cities. For additional information about data that is withheld from the public use files please contact MTF directly at mtfinformation@umich.edu.
description: Enrolled 8th- and 10th-grade students in the contiguous United States.
description: A multistage area probability sample design was used involving three selection stages: (1) geographic areas or primary sampling units (PSUs), (2) schools (or linked groups of schools) within PSUs, and (3) students within sampled schools. Of the 72 PSUs, 8 were selected with certainty, 10 were selected with a probability of .50, and the remainder were selected using a probability based on their 2000 Census household count. In schools with more than 350 students in the grade, a sample of students or classes was drawn. In schools with less than 350 students in a grade, all students were asked to participate unless logistical challenges required a sample be taken. Each school was asked to participate for two years so that each year one-half of the sample would be replaced. Schools refusing participation were replaced with similar schools in terms of geographic location, size, and type of school (e.g., public, private/Catholic, private/non-Catholic). For the 8th-grade survey, schools with less than 20 8th graders were excluded from the sample. For the 10th-grade survey, schools with less than 25 10th graders were excluded. The participation rate among schools has been between 66 and 80 percent since the inception of the study.