Testing Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting cognitive research on the National Crime Victimization Survey, a survey sponsored by the Department of Justice. We will be conducting additional pretesting on the Internet Predation questions to be asked of individual household respondents between the ages of 12 and 17 years old. This cognitive research is a continuation of the pretesting activities on these questions. These activities are described in letters dated October 5 and December 6, 2006.

During the first round of testing, we conducted cognitive interviews on the initial draft of proposed questions. The results of this pretesting revealed a significant amount of variability in how respondents think about their internet activities. This variability indicated changes to the questionnaire would be necessary. Based on these results, we conducted a set of focus groups to gather more information on how respondents think about their internet activities. We have since used this information to modify the initial questions and are now requesting approval to conduct an additional round of cognitive interviews testing the modified questions.

In February, 2008, approximately 15 cognitive interviews will be conducted by staff from the Center for Survey Methods Research (CSMR). As in the previous cognitive research, we will be targeting children between the ages of 12 and 17 in our recruiting efforts, with the goal of interviewing participants with high and low levels of education, and from a variety of racial and ethnic groups. We will recruit respondents through advertisements in local newspapers, contacts with local community organizations, and personal networks. We will also recruit people who are currently in our respondent database. The interviews will take place in the local metropolitan area (DC, Maryland, Virginia) at the Census Bureau’s Response Research Laboratory, at the offices of community organizations used to recruit respondents, and at locations convenient to interviewees. Since we are using children between the ages of 12 and 17, prior to participation, parents or legal guardians will sign a consent form, permitting their child’s participation in the cognitive interview. A copy of the consent form is enclosed.

To emulate the conditions of a field interview, we will administer the individual screener questions (beginning with page 13 of the enclosed NCVS screener) and the employment questions will be asked of respondents who are aged 16 or over. Then we will ask the modified questions on internet predation. All these questions are enclosed.

Interviews will be conducted using the concurrent think-aloud method. To facilitate analysis of the results, we also will audio-tape the interviews, with parental permission and participants’ verbal assent. Finally, participants will be informed that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by employees involved in the research project. Each participant will receive $40 for their participation in this research.

We estimate that each interview will take approximately 1 hour. Thus, the total estimated burden for this research is 15 hours.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:

Jennifer Beck

Center for Survey Methods Research

U.S. Census Bureau

5K112D

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1736

[email protected]

Sincerely yours,

Theresa J. DeMaio

Center for Survey Methods Research

Enclosures

cc:

T. Smith (AMSD) with enclosures

T. Wright (SRD) without enclosures

M. de la Puente (SRD) without enclosures

J. Beck (SRD) without enclosures