Family Information Form

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.

Dataset Names

Raw Dataset Name: PyB
Scored Dataset Name: FIFySPc

Keywords

Demographic Characteristics, Family Structure, Family History, Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, Special Education, Parent Employment, Finances, Family Relations, Parent Child Relationship