Monitoring the Future Survey

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is an annual survey of the attitudes, values, and behaviors of a nationally representative sample of 15,000 to 19,000 American high school students and young adults. It is conducted by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. MTF began collecting data, originally on 12th graders only, in 1975; since 1991, 8th and 10th graders have also been surveyed. Currently, approximately 50,000 students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades are surveyed each year. Participation rate has been 66% to 85% over all years of the study. In addition, follow-up mail questionnaires are sent biannually to a randomly selected sample from each senior class.

The primary focus of MTF is the use and abuse of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs by young adults and their perceptions and attitudes toward these substances. The MTF consists of two parts: core questions that include demographic information and basic questions about substance use, which are asked of every respondent, and ancillary questions on a variety of topics such as social and political attitudes, health behaviors, and educational aspirations, which are administered to different subsamples of respondents through the use of different questionnaire forms. MTF data, documentation, and supporting materials are available from the ICPSR and Monitoring the Future Web sites listed below.

Most MTF data are gathered through an annual cross-sectional survey of students currently attending school in the 8th, 10th, or 12th grades. These data are collected through self-administered questionnaires filled out by individual students, usually during a normal class period at their school. The survey administration is supervised by University of Michigan staff members and data are not shared with either the students' parents or school officials. Questionnaire forms are optically scanned and stored as an electronic data file.

MTF uses a probability sample design with three selection stages:

• 1.
  Broad geographic area (Northeast, North central, South, or West)
• 2.
  Schools or linked groups of schools within a geographic area
• 3.
  Students within schools—if a school has less than 350 students in the relevant grade, all are selected; if there are more than 350, participants are randomly selected

Schools who decline to participate are replaced with schools similar in type (public, Catholic or private/non-Catholic), geographic location, and size. Specific questionnaire forms (six were used in 2004) are administered in an ordered sequence so a nearly identical subsample of students completes each form.

A longitudinal component was added to the MTF in 1976: Since then, a random sample of about 2,400 students from that year's 12th-grade participants has been selected to participate in follow-up surveys. These participants are divided into two groups, who are mailed questionnaires in alternating years (so half the participants receive a questionnaire in odd-numbered years following 12th grade, i.e., Years 1, 3, 5, and so on, while half receive follow-up questionnaires in [Page 690]even-numbered years. Retention for the first year of follow-up averages 77%.

The greatest strength of MTF is the availability of data on the same questions over multiple years and the use of scientific sampling procedures to allow the computation of nationally valid estimates of responses. This allows researchers to address questions such as the prevalence of tobacco use among 12th graders and how that number has changed over the years. The large number of questions included in each survey, the extremely detailed examination of substance use, and the inclusion of a range of other types of questions also increases its usefulness. The most obvious limitation is that the MTF sample is not representative of all young Americans in the age groups included, only of those attending school: Young people who are home schooled, have dropped out, or are not attending school for some other reason (such as health problems or incarceration) are not included in the sample, and there is every reason to believe that they would differ systematically from young people attending conventional schools.

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