TY - JOUR
T1 - Substantive Meanings of Missing Data in Family Research
T2 - Does “Don't Know” Matter?
AU - Pearce-Morris, Jennifer
AU - Choi, Seung won
AU - Roth, Veronica
AU - Young, Rebekah
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Justin Dyer and Sarah O. Meadows for their insightful comments as discussants during the 2012 TCRM workshop. This study uses data from the National Survey of Families and Households (Waves 1 [1987–88] and 2 [1992–1994]) public use data set. NFSH public use data set is distributed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI) with funding from the National Institutes of Health. This study also uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Add Health was funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. To obtain the Add Health data files, contact the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2014/11/15
Y1 - 2014/11/15
N2 - In this article we analyze “don't know” responses from three sources of longitudinal data: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 14,528), the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 5,488), and the National Health Interview Survey Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (n = 1,131). We asked whether these responses are meaningful in family research, and, if so, how evaluating these responses can contribute to the development of theory, the discovery of novel findings, and identification of sensible methods for analyzing these nebulous responses. We found that “don't know” responses to questions about family members predicted less educational attainment, poor marital quality, and earlier mortality. Results suggest that this response category may have substantive meanings rather than indicating neutral responses or being missing data.
AB - In this article we analyze “don't know” responses from three sources of longitudinal data: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 14,528), the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 5,488), and the National Health Interview Survey Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (n = 1,131). We asked whether these responses are meaningful in family research, and, if so, how evaluating these responses can contribute to the development of theory, the discovery of novel findings, and identification of sensible methods for analyzing these nebulous responses. We found that “don't know” responses to questions about family members predicted less educational attainment, poor marital quality, and earlier mortality. Results suggest that this response category may have substantive meanings rather than indicating neutral responses or being missing data.
KW - measurement
KW - missing data
KW - nonresponse
KW - regression
KW - relationship ambivalence
KW - survey research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84911956198&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01494929.2014.938292
DO - 10.1080/01494929.2014.938292
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84911956198
VL - 50
SP - 665
EP - 690
JO - Marriage and Family Review
JF - Marriage and Family Review
SN - 0149-4929
IS - 8
ER -