DOI: 10.3886/icpsr07929
title: Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth, 1978
title: Archival Version

description: This is the fourth annual survey in this series that
 explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle
 orientations of contemporary American youth. The students are randomly
 assigned one of five questionnaires, each with a different subset of
 topical questions but all containing a set of "core" questions on
 demographics and drug use. There are about 1,300 variables across the
 questionnaires. Full details on the research design and procedures,
 sampling methodology, content areas, and questionnaire design, as well
 as percentage distributions by respondent's sex, race, region, college
 plans, and drug use, appear in the annual Institute for Social
 Research volumes MONITORING THE FUTURE: QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSES FROM
THE NATION'S HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS.
description: Each of the six 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: Response Rates: The participation rate among schools has been
 between 66 and 80 percent since the inception of the study. The
overall student response rate for 1978 was 83 percent.
description: Multistate area probability sample design 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 74 PSUs, 12 were selected with
 certainty and 62 were selected with probability proportionate to size
 based on the size of the senior class. In schools with more than 400
 seniors, a random sample of seniors or classes was drawn. In schools
 with less than 400 seniors, all seniors were asked to participate.
 Each school was asked to participate for two years, so that each year
 one-half of the sample is 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).
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Form 1 Questionnaire
DS2: Form 2 Questionnaire
DS3: Form 3 Questionnaire
DS4: Form 4 Questionnaire
DS5: Form 5 Questionnaire
DS6: Core Variables
description: High school seniors in the contiguous United States.
description: self-administered questionnaires(1) Percentage distributions provided in the codebook
 were generated using full weights, which are not available on the
 public use files. Therefore, these results cannot be replicated using
 the public use files. The differences between results produced using
 the full weights and those produced using the sampling weights
 available on the public use files are estimated to be below 1
 percent. (2) To protect the confidentiality of respondents, all
 variables that could be used to identify individuals have been
 collapsed or recoded on the public use files. These modifications
should not affect analytic uses of the public use files.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.