Questions Regarding Driving

Developed for the Pittsburgh Youth Study (see Loeber, R., and Stouthamer-Loeber, M.,1991). Pittsburgh Youth Study, The Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

Abstract: The Questions Regarding Driving measure is a 14-item instrument taken from the Pittsburgh Youth Survey. Fast Track added the measure to the child instrument battery in study year 8. The measure assesses whether the child has ever driven and if so, how often, whether the child has a driver’s license or a permit, whose car the child drives, where the child goes when he/she uses the car, the child’s experience with drinking or using drugs and driving, and the child’s beliefs about drinking and driving. Only students who responded “yes” to having ever driven a car were asked questions about their driving activities. Only students who reported that they had been a passenger in a car driven by someone who had been drinking or using drugs were asked the subsequent question about frequency. For the items in this instrument, there is no obvious scoring. Analysts should note that the skip patterns used for this measure resulted in the need to recode the data to get an accurate number of “no” responses versus missing responses. The design of this measure allows certain questions to be skipped if the respondent answered “no” to the previous question. If the child answered “no” to question 1, he/she answered question 2, then skipped to question 11. If the child answered “no” to question 11, he/she skipped to question 13. Although no values were entered for the skipped questions, these are not considered missing data; rather, because of the “no” response to the preceding question (question 1or 11), the responses to questions 2 through 10 and question 12, respectively, are actually “no.” For the purposes of these technical report analyses, if a respondent answered “no” to question 1, his/her answers to questions 2 through 10 were considered to be “no” and coded as a “0.” Likewise, if a respondent answered “no” to question 11, his/her answer to question 12 was considered to be “no” and coded as a “0.” Analysts should also note that while respondents entered the actual number of occurrences for questions 7, 9, 12, and 13, the allowed responses for question 3 were as follows: 0 = never, 1 = every day, 2 = once a week or more, and 3 = less than once a week. Because this does not follow a pattern of increasing frequency of occurrences as numbered response increases, responses were recoded as follows: 0 = never, 1 = less than once a week, 2 = once a week or more, and 3 = every day. Additionally, analysts should be aware that although the question was phrased as a yes/no question, the allowed responses for question 2 (Do you have a drivers license or permit?) were 0 = no, 1 = license, and 2 = permit.

Who Completed this Measure?: select one

Cohort 1 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Cohort 2 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Cohort 3 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Technical Reports:

Raw Dataset Name: CxAS

Scored Dataset Name: GRDySCc

Keywords:
Automobile Accidents, Car Safety, Drinking, Driver's License, Drugs, dui

Is this Measure Available for Public Use?: Yes

Obtain Measure:
Download the measure here