Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of American Youth (12th-Grade Survey), 2021

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that
explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of
contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of
six 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 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by
this survey include tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish,
prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens,
amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), Quaaludes (methaqualone),
barbiturates (tranquilizers), cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxy
butyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes
toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations,
self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and
out of school).Highlights for 2021:

Data collection resumed in 2021,
with a change to all web-based surveys.

Students completed the surveys on
their personal or school-provided device.

Non-survey variables have been
changed or added to facilitate analyses. For details, please see the codebook
section "MTF Variable Information - Non-survey variables included in the
data files - Survey mode and design variables for 2021"

Information about "screen
break" issues, where series of questions were originally presented differently
in the web-based survey as compared to the 2019/2020 tablet surveys. Please see
the codebook and Appendix D for details.

For 12th grade: two additional changes
to the survey presentation. Please see the codebook section "MTF Variable
Information - Non-survey variables included in the data files", and respective
appendices for details.

Introduction of randomized blocks
of questions presented to students. Please see Appendix E.

Test of presentation of items in the
substance use consequences section on form 3. Please see Appendix F.

Additional information is documented in the
MTFQchanges2021byForm.pdf and MTFQchanges2021byType.pdf files available for
download.