Original article
Development of adolescent self-report measures from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

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Abstract

Purpose: To present a set of multi-item indicators and associated reliability estimates derived from early research with survey data from adolescents participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

Methods: Add Health provides information on the health and health-related behaviors of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents, as well as on individual-level and contextual factors that either promote young peoples’ health or increase their health risk. Specifically, the 135-page in-home adolescent survey instrument includes multiple items intended to measure individual-level and social-environmental constructs relevant to adolescent health and well-being. This article details the development of a set of multi-item scales and indices from Add Health in-home adolescent survey data. These steps include identification of inconsistent responders, use of a split-halves approach to measurement validation, and use of a deductive approach in the development of scales and item composites.

Results: Estimates of internal consistency reliability suggest that many of the multi-item measures have acceptable levels of internal consistency across grade, gender, and race/ethnic groups included in this nationally representative sample of adolescents. In addition, moderate to high bivariate correlations between selected measures provide initial evidence of underlying latent constructs.

Conclusions: This article provides adolescent health researchers with a set of methodologic procedures and measures developed in early research on the Add Health core adolescent data set.

Section snippets

Add health study design and instrumentation

The current research is based on data from Add Health, a 1-year longitudinal study of seventh- through 12th-grade students in the United States and the multiple social contexts in which they live. The primary sampling frame for the Add Health study included all high schools in the United States that had an 11th grade and at least 30 enrollees in the school (N = 26,666). Schools within this frame were stratified by geographic region, urbanicity, school size, school type, percentage white,

Reliability estimates

As illustrated in column 2 of Table 1, many of the multi-item scales demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency reliability among the scale validation sample (i.e., Cronbach α = .70–.87) (26). Three scales, Victimization History, Substance Use With Sex, and Contraceptive Use Self-Efficacy, had lower levels of internal consistency within the validation sample (.66, .65, and .65, respectively). With regard to Victimization History, low levels of problem-indicating response to one item

Discussion

This article provides adolescent health researchers with a set of measures and methodologic procedures used in early research on the Wave 1 core adolescent data set from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results suggest that many of the multi-item scales presented have acceptable levels of internal consistency within this nationally representative sample of young people. Measures demonstrating acceptable levels of reliability are appropriate for use with future research

Acknowledgements

This research is based on data from the Add Health project, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, and funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding participation by the National Cancer Institute; the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication

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    During the preparation of the manuscript, authors were supported in part by grants from the Maternal-Child Health Bureau, HRSA; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS.

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