Follow-up Interviews
Follow-up interviews (also called "time point interviews") were conducted
- every six months for the first three years of the study
- annually thereafter through 84 months
- participants were contacted every three to six months over the entire course of the study to provide updated contact information
- Data were collected with computer-assisted interviews at the participants' homes, in libraries (or other public places), or in facilities (any where the study participant was at the time of his/her interview).
- All measures and associated skip patterns were programmed onto laptop computers. Trained interviewers read each item aloud and, to maximize privacy, respondents could choose to enter their responses on a key pad (in some incarceration facilities, this option was not available).
- Follow-up interviews took approximately 2 hours to complete.
- Study participants were paid using a graduated payment schedule which ranged from $50 to $115 depending upon the interview period.
Timing of follow-up interviews
The date for each of the follow-up interview was calculated based on the date of the baseline interview, ensuring approximately equal measurement periods for all participants. A window of opportunity to complete each follow-up interview opened at 6 weeks prior to the follow-up interview target date and closed at 8 weeks after the target date. If the follow-up interview was not completed within this time frame, it was considered a "missed" interview.
Retention rates were calculated by both wave (follow-up interview) and cumulatively over the duration of the follow-up period. Time point retention rates are simply the percentage of the sample that completed the interview for a particular wave before they exited the window of opportunity. We think of cumulative retention as the proportion of possible interviews we have completed for an individual across all time points. Considering retention in this way give us an idea about the number of missing data points we will have at the individual subject level.
Follow-up Interview content
Measures
Similar to the baseline interview, the follow-up interviews covered six domains: (a) indicators of individual functioning (e.g., work and school status and performance, substance abuse, mental disorder, antisocial behavior), (b) psychosocial development and attitudes (e.g., impulse control, susceptibility to peer influence, perceptions of opportunity, perceptions of procedural justice, moral disengagement), (c) family context (e.g., household composition, quality of family relationships), (d) personal relationships (e.g., quality of romantic relationships and friendships, peer delinquency, contacts with caring adults), (e) community context (e.g., neighborhood conditions, personal capital, social ties, and community involvement) and (f) a monthly account of changes across multiple domains (see life event calendar description below).
The following link will direct you to a complete list of the measures included in the follow-up as well as the reference for each measure. The codebook tab on this website will provide a description of each measure: Follow-up Reference List
Life-event Calendars
Juvenile offenders’ lives often are chaotic and unstable, with frequent changes in residence, education, employment, and interpersonal relationships. We wished to capture not only information that could characterize the period covered in each interview (as with the measures noted above) but also information about the nature, number, and timing of important changes in life circumstances. For example, although we were interested in whether an adolescent worked during the period covered by an interview, we also wished to know when and how long employment periods lasted, and whether those periods preceded or followed criminal activity. Previously developed methods for structuring life-event recall have been shown to provide reasonably accurate information about the temporal sequencing of events during the period covered by an interview. Such methods for constructing life-event calendars have been used successfully in studies of criminal offending, antisocial behavior, and mental health service use (Caspi et al., 1996;
Horney, Osgood, & Marshall, 1995).
The Pathways study includes life-event calendar information (at the monthly level) for:
- Education
- Income-generating activities
- Legal (self-report information regarding involvement with the legal system, antisocial activity and court monitoring activities)
- Living situation
- Romantic relationships
- Sanctions and interventions
