LBC Survey Gallup Question Changes Explanation

Gallup , Inc. for the U.S. Department of State

Bureau of Consular Affairs Office

Passport Services Office

2009 Land Border Crossing Survey

LBC Passport Survey Explanation of Survey Changes

11/19/2008

Intro: The original intro was found to be confusing with respondents as it asked too many things at once. It was asking them to consider only adults who were U.S. citizens, then to think among that group how many had made a land border crossing. We found that people focused more on the U.S. citizen portion and were then including adults who made air travel to Canada/Mexico. Breaking the question into two parts should eliminate that confusion and allow the focus to be on correctly identifying land border crossers. These changes will reduce the screening errors identified in the original survey.

Q2: This question was found to provide conflicting information to Q1 in some cases. Gallup explored the differing responses to the quantitative question on actual number of trips and a more qualitative assessment of trips in focus groups and found that respondents interpret the more qualitative (i.e. a few times a year) differently. This question is being dropped and we will rely upon the actual number of trips in Q1 for the modeling as was used in 2007.

Q4: Similar to Q2, this question is being dropped in favor of the quantitative question 5.

Q6: similar to Q2 and Q4, this question is being changed from the qualitative measure which was interpreted differently by different respondents to a quantitative question.

Q6a. This new question to gauge the likelihood of taking the trips is being added as this question was found to greatly enhance the predictive ability of the application model based on the results of the Gallup Panel data.

Q8, 9, and others. The response categories on these questions are being updated to reflect the changed time period of this survey from the original in 2007.

Q10. This question is being split into two parts to reduce respondent burden. Review of interviews from the 2007 LBC indicated that respondent’s original inclination was to answer the question as a “yes/no” question, necessitating the interview to then follow-up and ask the purpose of the planned application. Few respondents answered the original question without prompting.

Q11aa. This new question to gauge the likelihood of taking the trips is being added as this question was found to greatly enhance the predictive ability of the application model.

Q11a-15. These questions are being changed to ask about children only, not other adults in the household. Adult estimates are (and were in the 2007 LBC) generated off of projected data from the main respondent. Because the original question wording combined anyone else in the household, Gallup was not able to segment out projections for just children, and so had to rely on other, non-survey data, for estimates for minors. This will allow us to get more accurate projections on applications for children.

Q17. The question was originally included as we wanted to obtain input from persons planning farther out land border travel than the next 12 months as the WHTI initiative could have taken place as far as 30 months from the time of the original survey. Since WHTI goes into effect within 6 months of this survey, this question is no longer necessary.

Q20/20a. Since the Passport Card is now available and not theoretical, this question has been designed to ask about awareness of the card, while 20a is now asking the likelihood of applying for the Card.

Q21a. This question was originally asked to measure application time frame under two possible scenarios for the availability of Passport Cards. Since Passport Cards are now available, this question is not necessary.

Q23c. This question now asks about Passport Card use for Children (rather than all other adults in the household) to match to the changes in Q11a-Q15.

Q24/25. Two new questions are being added to gauge awareness of changes in the passport requirements for land border crossing. These will be used to help in the modeling of future applications as well as to gauge impact of the public awareness campaign.

Old Q16/ 18/19. Have been moved to follow the Passport Card questions as the card is now available, and we need to measure the impact of WHTI on both Passport Books AND Passport Card applications. The questions remain otherwise the same.

D3/D4. Ethnicity and race are added to allow for more accurate projection weighting to the population.

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