Teens and Technology - Pew Internet & American Life Project

Methodology
The Parents & Teens 2004 Survey sponsored by the Pew Internet and American Life
Project obtained telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,100
teens 12 to 17 years-old and their parents living in continental United States telephone
households. The interviews were conducted in English by Princeton Data Source, LLC
from October 26 to November 28, 2004. Statistical results are weighted to correct known
demographic discrepancies. The margin of sampling error for the complete set of
weighted data is ±3.3%.
Four focus groups were also conducted with a total of 38 high school and middle school
students. Amanda Lenhart, Christina Fiebich and Kelli Burns moderated the focus
groups. Groups were audio or video taped and the participants were offered an incentive
of two movie passes to a local theater. A short online survey was administered to each
participant prior to the focus group.
Three of the focus groups were predominately high schoolers and one consisted of
middle school students. 66% of the participants were boys, 34% were girls. No race or
ethnicity data was collected from the participants. Ages ranged from 11 to 17. Two focus
groups drew from predominately suburban and urban populations and two from
predominately small town or rural/exurban populations.
A total of 9 teens took an online survey of multiple choice, open-ended and short answerstyle
questions that covered many of the same themes address in the focus groups. While
no statistical data collected in this survey is used here, some open-ended responses by the
teen respondents may be included in this report. The sample was collected by the
snowball method, and is not representative.
Details on the design, execution and analysis of the telephone survey are discussed
below.
Design and Data Collection Procedures
Sample Design
The sample was designed to represent all teens aged 12 to 17 in continental U.S.
telephone households. The sample is also representative of parents living with their
teenage children.
The telephone sample was pulled from previous PIAL projects fielded in 2004 and 2003.
Households with a child age 18 or younger were called back and screened to find 12 to
17 year-olds. The original telephone samples were provided by Survey Sampling
Teens and Technology - 44 - Pew Internet & American Life Project