Baydar, Nazli
Reliability and Validity of Temperament Scales of the NLSY Child assessments
Working Paper, Seattle WA: Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, October 1993
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Battelle Human Affairs Research Center
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children; Children, Behavioral Development; Children, Temperament; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Methods/Methodology; Motor and Social Development (MSD); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Scale Construction; Temperament; Verbal Memory (McCarthy Scale);

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The child assessments of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth provide a unique source of information for studying cognitive and socio-emotional development longitudinally in a large national sample of children. This paper presents an investigation of the psychometric properties of the temperament scales that measure the personality and social adjustment of children aged 0-6. These scales consist of a set of maternally and interviewer reported items available from the 1986, 1988 and 1990 NLSY administrations. Four temperament scales are presented: two scales for infants aged 6-23 months, and two scales for children aged 2-6 years. Specifically, we investigate whether the temperament scales meet the following criteria: (1) A satisfactory level of internal reliability; (2) comparable factor structures between administrations for children at a given age; (3) comparable factor structures across ages at a given assessment; (4) comparable factor structures longitudinal ly as a cohort ages; (5) stable factor loadings of items across different socio-demographic subpopulations; (6) empirically supported construct validity; and, (7) empirically supported predictive validity. The internal reliability, the stability of the factor structures beyond age 3, construct validity and the predictive validity of the temperament scales were empirically supported. However, the stability of the factor structure across socio-demographic subgroups could not be supported. The implications of this finding is discussed.

Baydar, Nazli
Greek, April A.
Analysis of Data from Related Individuals
Working Paper, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Seattle, WA, 2001
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Battelle Human Affairs Research Center
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Genetics; Kinship; Modeling; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading);

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study extends the basic genetic factor models designed for twin data to examine data coming from children who belong to kinship groups of varying size and structure. To the extent that the genetic factor models could be extended to samples that are non-selective or less-selective than twin samples, more accurate estimates of genetic and environmental contributions may be obtained. In handling of data from kinship groups of children, several methodological and substantive issues arise. In order to demonstrate the implications of different approaches to resolve these issues, the estimates of ten models were compared that differed due to sample and model specification. The data come from children age 6-12 years in the 1992 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Children (NLSY-C). Analyses of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) for Reading Recognition and Behavior Problems Index (BPI) were conducted to estimate additive genetic and environmental components of variance. Results showed that estimates obtained from different methods of analysis varied substantially but were more robust for the PIAT scores than for the BPI scores. It was concluded that covariance structure models for kinship groups would make more efficient use of data from multiple related children than models for pairs of related children.

Klepinger, Daniel H.
Lundberg, Shelly
Plotnick, Robert D.
Teen Childbearing and Human Capital: Does Timing Matter?
Working Paper, Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Battelle Memorial, Seattle WA, October 1999
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Battelle Human Affairs Research Center
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Age at First Birth; Childbearing, Adolescent; Educational Attainment; Human Capital; Racial Differences; Schooling; Teenagers; Variables, Instrumental; Wages; Work Experience;

In this paper, we model and estimate the relationship between teenage childbearing at different ages and human capital investment. Taking advantage of a large set of potential instruments for fertility--principally state and county-level indicators of the costs of fertility and fertility control--we use instrumental variables procedures to generate unbiased estimates of the effects of early fertility at different ages on education and work. Using data from the NLSY, we find that teenage childbearing at any age substantially reduces years of formal education and early adult work experience for both black and white women. The effects of early and later teen births are similar for both education and early adult work experience. There are no important racial differences in the effects. In contrast, we find no significant impact of a first birth during ages 20-24 on education or work experience. An early teen birth fails have stronger detrimental effects because younger teen mothers are as likely to graduate from high school as older teen mothers, and are equally unlikely to attend college. Our results suggest that "a teen birth is a teen birth", and that public policies that reduce teenage childbearing are likely to have positive effects on the economic well being of many young mothers and their families.