Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term study of American adolescents, college students, and adults through age 50. It has been conducted annually by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research since its inception in 1975 and is supported under a series of investigator-initiated, competing research grants from the National…

Now in its 35th year, Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term program of research conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study is comprised of several ongoing series of annual surveys of nationally…

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) study is an ongoing series of national surveys of American adolescents and adults that has provided the nation with a vital window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illegal drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, anabolic steroid use, and psychotherapeutic drug use. For more than a third of a…

This paper uses a case history approach to present the evolution of two longitudinal studies, Youth in Transition, which involved 8 years of data collection (1966-1974) and Monitoring the Future, for which data collection began in 1975 and continues in the present. The Youth in Transition project is described as a study of the causes and…

This presentation is an informal discussion of a questionnaire context effect which led to an erroneous conclusion in analysis of data from the Monitoring the Future project; an annual survey of high school seniors that has occurred since 1975, and that focuses heavily on their drug use and attitudes about drugs. In 1980, the researchers reported…

To assess the changing lifestyles, values, and preferences of American youth, measures of drug use, interrelationships among such measures, and their relationships to other variables were investigated in a nationwide survey of 1978 high school seniors. Students reported their use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and 10 other categories of drugs…

Due to certain inconsistencies between students' reports of monthly versus yearly drug use, further analyses of self-reported drug use by high school senior classes of 1976-1979 were conducted. Previous reports of drug use frequency during the past month were roughly three times larger than estimates based on usage reports during the past year, a…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the Monitoring the Future research design, including sampling, data collection procedures, measurement content, and questionnaire format. Monitoring the Future is designed to assess the changing lifestyles, values, and preferences of American youth on a continuing basis. Since the…

This occasional paper is intended to disseminate information from the project, Monitoring the Future. Each year since 1975, about 17,000 seniors have participated in the survey, which is conducted in some 130 high schools nationwide. In addition, subsamples of seniors from previously participating classes receive follow-up questionnaires by mail…

This paper is a companion to the book, "Smoking, Drinking, and Drug Use in Young Adulthood: The Impacts of New Freedoms and New Responsibilities," by Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, and Schulenberg (1997). The book attempts to disentangle the effects of post-high school roles on drug use by conducting a variety of analyses on…

This book focuses on transitions into young adulthood by examining key roles and experiences of young adults and how they relate to changes in drug use. The findings are based on the nationwide Monitoring the Future project, and represent the majority of individuals who entered young adulthood in the United States during the years 1976 through…

This paper presents information from the ongoing research program, Monitoring the Future. The program is designed to: (1) monitor drug use and potential explanatory factors among American secondary school students, and other young adults; (2) distinguish which of three different kinds of change--maturational, historical, and/or cohort are…