Data Sources for Youth With Disabilities

The data sources for self-representations of youth with disabilities are⁶

• a youth telephone interview and mail survey; and
  
  
• an in-person interview with youth conducted at the same time as a direct assessment of their academic abilities.

Analyses of youth's self-representations also involve data from

• a parent interview and mail survey; and
  
  
• school districts' reports of the primary disability category for which students were provided special education services when selected for the study.

Each data source for youth with disabilities is described briefly below and discussed in greater detail in appendix A.

Youth Self-Representations

The large majority of information reported in this document comes from youth with disabilities themselves in the form of responses to either a telephone interview or a self-administered mail survey, which contained a subset of key items from the telephone interview.⁷ Data from the two sources were combined for the majority of analyses reported here. A few additional items come from in-person interviews with youth conducted in conjunction with an assessment of their academic skills.

Youth telephone interview. NLTS2 sample members for whom working telephone numbers and addresses were available (a total of 8,672 youth) were eligible for the Wave 2 parent telephone interview in 2003.⁸ After making the initial telephone contact with the parents or guardians (referred to here as parents) of sample members and completing items intended only for adult respondents, parents were asked whether their adolescent children with disabilities were able to respond to questions about their experiences by telephone for themselves. Parents who responded affirmatively and whose sample children were younger than age 18 then were asked to grant permission for their children to be interviewed and told the kinds of questions that would be asked.⁹ Parents of youth 18 or older were informed of the kinds of questions that would be asked of youth but permission was not requested because youth were no longer minors. Parents of 3,778 youth responded affirmatively to both questions, making their children eligible for a telephone interview. Interviewers obtained contact information for these youth and attempted to complete a telephone interview with them. Telephone interviews were completed with 2,919 youth, 77 percent of the 3,778 who were eligible.¹⁰

Youth mail survey. If parent respondents to the Wave 2 telephone interview indicated that youth were not able to respond to questions about their experiences for themselves by telephone, interviewers asked whether youth would be able to complete a mail questionnaire. Parents of 860 youth responded positively, making their children eligible for a mail survey.¹¹ A mailing address was obtained for those sample members, and a questionnaire was sent to the youth. Questionnaires were tailored to the circumstances of individual youth. For example, if a parent indicated in the telephone interview that a youth was employed, the questionnaire for that youth contained a section on employment experiences, which was not included in questionnaires for youth reported not to be employed. Questionnaires were returned for 441 youth, 51 percent of the 860 youth who were eligible.

These two sources yielded data for this report for 3,360 youth, 72 percent of those whom parents reported could respond to questions for themselves by phone or mail.

In-person youth interview. In addition to the telephone interview and mail survey, youth were interviewed in-person at the conclusion of a direct assessment of their academic skills; assessors/interviewers typically were school psychologists or teachers and were recruited in the geographic areas of eligible youth. Because in-person data collection can be labor intensive and costly, the NLTS2 design called for only one assessment and interview per sample member. An assessment/interview was attempted for each NLTS2 sample member for whom a telephone interview or mail questionnaire had been completed by a parent and parental consent for the assessment/interview had been provided; a total of 9,414 youth met these criteria.

Youth were eligible for an assessment/interview during the data collection wave in which they were 16 through 18 years old.¹² This age range was selected to limit the variability in academic performance measured on the direct assessment that could be attributed to differences in the ages of the youth participating and to mesh with the every-2-year data collection cycle of the study. The study design linked the timing of assessments with school data collection (conducted in 2002 and 2004) because most assessments/interviews took place at school. The oldest two single-year age cohorts of youth (i.e., those ages 15 or 16 when sampled) reached the eligible age range in Wave 1 (2002); the younger two cohorts (those ages 13 or 14 when sampled) reached the eligible age range when Wave 2 school data were collected. A total of 5,222 youth participated in the NLTS2 assessment/interview, including 73 percent of the youth (a total of 2,442) who are the focus of this report.

Although the in-person youth interview covered a variety of topics, this report includes survey items related to friendships (e.g., agreement that the youth can find a friend when he/she needs one) and items related to youth's perceptions of their own personal autonomy, self-realization, and psychological empowerment (Wehmeyer 1997). The latter items were selected by the NLTS2 advisory panel and design team from The Arc's Self-Determination Scale (Wehmeyer 2000); items were selected from among those in the original instrument with the highest factor loading and face validity to reflect the three conceptual domains noted above. Responses to all items are self-reports by youth.

Parent/Guardian Interview/Survey

Chapter 6 compares the expectations youth with disabilities have for their futures in 2003 with expectations their parents held for them in 2001. Parents/guardians of NLTS2 sample members were interviewed by telephone or surveyed by mail¹³ in that year, as part of Wave 1 data collection. Ninety-five percent of the youth who are the focus of this report (3,191 youth) also have Wave 1 data regarding their parents' expectations for their future.

School- and School-District-Identified Primary Disability Category

Information about the primary disability category of NLTS2 sample members came from rosters of students in the NLTS2 age range receiving special education services in the 2000–01 school year under the auspices of participating school districts and state-supported special schools.¹⁴

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