Family Information Form
For
details on how to obtain this measure, contact
Abstract
The Family Information Form (CPPRG, 1990) is part of the
summer interview given to parents after the school year was over.
This meaure was used in year 1 for deriving demographic information,
information concerning family structure, and socioeconomic status.
Gradually, as the measure was used over the next 12 years, more
and more items were added to include the target child's experience
with adult male figures, the family yearly history of medical, mental
health, drug and alcohol illnesses/difficulties for parents, the
target child's siblings, and information for tracking families in
the event of a move.
Three scores were created for this dataset; the Socioeconomic Status
Continuous Code, the Socioeconomic Status Categorical Code and the
Family Occupation Code.
Also, a variable called Time Together was created to reflect the
number of years the adult male and adult female had been married
or living together.
The Fast Track Project created this form to collect general data
about the target child and the target child's family. The majority
of the items for this measure were designed to be single-use items
and do not necessarily reflect a pattern within the data or a scale
construct. Analysts should also note that several problems were
noted in the analyses of this data:
- Some respondents who said there was no female head of household
for their family gave responses to items indicating that there
was a female head for the family. To correct this problem, a forced
skip pattern was used in the analyses of the data about the female
head to eliminate those females who were not actually present
in the household.
- Also, some respondents said there was no male head of household
for the family, yet gave responses to items indicating that there
was a male head for the family. As was done with the data for
the female heads, a forced skip pattern was then used to analyze
only the data for the male heads who were noted as being present
in the household.
- Finally, a probable coding error was discovered for item, "How
is the male head of household related to the target child?"
The majority of responses for all of the samples indicated that
most men were stepparents of the target child, rather than biological
fathers. This error did not occur in the data collection for the
other cohorts for year 1 or in other years for this measure. It
is possible that the two responses (biological parent and stepparent)
were reversed on the 1991 form, but the Data Center has not yet
found definitive evidence either way.
Keywords: Demographic Characteristics, Family Structure, Family
History, Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, Special Education, Parent
Employment, Finances, Family Relations, Parent Child Relationship
Administration History
See study
years administered.
Back to Fast Track home
Back to instrument
list
18 November 2003
|
