This retrospective case study assessed the influence of item non-response error on subsequent response to questionnaire items assessing adolescent alcohol and marijuana use. Post-hoc analyses were conducted on survey results obtained from 4,371 7th to 12th grade students in Ohio in 2005. A skip pattern design in a conventional questionnaire…

The use of illicit and licit drugs continues to be a major public health concern. Many prevention and drug education programs address this issue by attempting to enhance self-esteem. The idea is that increased levels of self-esteem will serve as a protective factor in decreasing the motivation and increasing the resistance to use drugs. This study…

The literature suggests that administering drug surveys to public school students is best done by persons outside of the school system (or at least unfamiliar to the students). This is the approach used by the long-time "Monitoring the Future" project. Because of the increased costs that administration by outside research associates requires (both…