Times: Maltese people are owed explanation on HBSC study

This letter is a reply to the articles and letters on the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey. (see here) and (here) for the background.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080802/letters/maltese-people-are-owed-explanation-on-hsbc-study
Saturday, 2nd August 2008; Fr Anton Gouder, Senglea

Quite some time has elapsed since I wrote my comment, which was published on July 28.

While pondering on what could have gone amiss with the HBSC survey - why it should produce such a strange conclusion regarding the situation of the family in Malta - it occurred to me that it would be more appropriate to consult the sources and not simply comment on reported data.

What was the question put to these adolescents? It is common knowledge that the way in which a question is versed may influence the answer and consequently the results. I browsed through the HBSC website but was unable to find the questionnaire, so I wrote to HBSC, who replied that "The HBSC questionnaire is not in public domain". Needless to say I was extremely surprised as well as disappointed. Their response aroused my interest further, leading me to obtain a copy of the questionnaire on the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children Study, Malta 2006.

The question (number 55) was put in this way: "All families are different (for example, not everyone lives with both their parents, sometimes people live with one parent, or they have two homes or live with two families) and we would like to know about yours. Please answer this first question for the home where you live all or most of the time and tick the people who live there." In my opinion, the format of the question already creates a bias; but what follows is more serious.

The respondents were given a number of options to choose from. The eight options given were the following: mother, father, stepmother (or father's girlfriend), stepfather (or mother's boyfriend), grandmother, grandfather, I live in a foster home or children's home, someone or somewhere else (please write it down). At no point were the adolescents offered the possibility to tick that they live with both parents.

I could not believe this. One might argue that they could have ticked two circles, to signify both the mother and the father. I agree, but the fact definitely remains that this particular question was not user-friendly. Apart from this, throughout the whole 25-page questionnaire, containing 76 questions, the participants were required to tick only one circle on every occasion. I believe that this is a major flaw which contaminated the result.

I was in for another big surprise when I went through the 206-page report on the HBSC website. The results to this question are found in the Annex of Supplementary Data Tables. The relevant table is the one with the heading "Family Structure: Young People Living in Different Family Types", to be found on page 185. This table reports the results under four headings: Both Parents, Single Parent, Step Family and Other. I scanned the list to find the results for Malta - and Malta was not listed. At the bottom of the table there is a note which reads "No data available for Malta".

Whoever is responsible, whether abroad and/or locally, owes the Maltese people an explanation. Already quite a number of politicians and policy makers have drawn their conclusions from the strange results that have been published.

My Note: This letter doesn't seem to tackle the original claim that:
Malta's data on sexual behaviour is missing after Church schools were instructed by the Curia not to fill in the questions related to intercourse, the contraceptive pill and condom use.