Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS): Woodcock-Johnson Assessments
QUESTION: It looks like the assessment file has 1,543 RSCs, whereas the PCG file has 1,603 RSCs between the ages of 3-17 (as determined by the RSC_AGE variable). I’ve been through the codebook but am still unsure why these numbers don’t match. Was there some criteria other than child’s age which determined which children received the assessment tests? Also, when I merged the assessment file (for RSC only) to the PCG file, I have 22 sample IDS that are on the Assessment file but not on the PCG file.
RESPONSE:
Table 2.11 in the main codebook (not the individual file codebooks) shows that several hundred eligible RSC refused to do the assessment test.
Note that the individual WJR assessment codebook says that the ASSESS1 data represents all those to whom an assessment test was given. As seen in Table 2.11, not all RSC (or SIB or PCG) who were eligible for assessment test were able to be given the test so no assessment booklet was filled out for them—no assessment booklet, no record in ASSESS1. Thus, one would not expect that all possible RSC age 3-17 would appear in the ASSESS1 file. Among RSC, around 100 RSC age 3-17 were not given the assessment test but did have a parent module started and thus they appear in the Parent1 file but not the ASSESS1 file.
Also, there were cases where an assessment test was done for an RSC (or SIB or PCG) where a parent module was not able to be done. The FI did the assessment test before trying to administer the parent module–they weren’t supposed to, but that’s what they did. That’s why you see 20-some odd RSC who are in the assessment data but not in the PARENT1 file.
Because the assessments were not always done right after the parent or child module, a subsequent visit may have been scheduled to do the assessment and that visit was never kept by the respondent. If the FI was not able to meet with the child to attempt to do the assessment test, then no assessment booklet was filled out.
So basically, if an RSC is not in the ASSESS1 file, then no assessment test was able to be attempted, basically due to nonresponse (which can be viewed as a refusal).