This study also has a few limitations. Although one limitation is that adolescent self-report was used to assess parental knowledge, previous research has established that such reports are more accurate and generally superior to parental reports, especially when assessing adolescent problem behaviors (Cottrell et al., 2003; Pittman et al., 2004). In fact, parental underestimates of adolescent substance use and problem behavior are themselves a risk factor for later adolescent involvement in substance use (Yang et al., 2006). Another limitation is that the measure of parental knowledge used in this study does not differentiate among the various components of parental knowledge, such as parental monitoring, parental solicitation, and adolescent self-disclosure. Past research has shown that parental knowledge obtained through parental monitoring may differ from knowledge obtained through other methods, such as disclosure and solicitation (Kerr et al., 2010; Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Future research should include distinct measures of parental knowledge comprised of monitoring, disclosure, and parental solicitation to examine the relative effects of each to substance use in African American and other samples.
