‘Mischievous Responders’ Confound Research On Teens

Teenagers face some serious issues: drugs, bullying, sexual violence, depression, gangs. They don’t always like to talk about these things with adults. One way that researchers and educators can get around that is to give teens a survey — a simple, anonymous questionnaire they can fill out by themselves without any grown-ups hovering over them. …

But a new research paper points out one huge potential flaw in all this research: kids who skew the results by making stuff up for a giggle. “Mischievous Responders,” they’re called. CONT.

Anya Kamenetz, NPR

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