The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting usability testing to examine the efficiency and ease of the 2012 National Census Test (NCT) Questionnaire. The NCT contains questions similar to those from the 2010 Census and the 2010 Census Quality Survey (CQS).
The focus of the 2012 NCT will be on coverage questions. The questions will be revised to send respondents through a set of skips based on their responses to the initial coverage questions. There will be a more detailed skip pattern for NCT than there has been in the past (e.g., CQS).
In June and July 2012, staff from the Census Bureau’s usability lab will conduct a maximum of 30 usability interviews. We will recruit using an ad on Craigslist.com as well as using participants from the lab’s participant database. The target population is complex households (e.g., 5 or more people living in a household, shared custody, etc.), since these people will provide a good test of the coverage questions. The sessions will take place in the Census Bureau's usability lab.
Each experimental session will include a test administrator and one participant at a time. Specs for the NCT questionnaire can be found in Attachment A. Screen shots will be provided once they are available. Participants will be asked to fill out an initial questionnaire with demographic questions on their age, sex, and education level. The questionnaire also contains questions about the respondents’ computer and Internet experience and is included as Attachment B. Participants will then complete the NCT and some debriefing questions. The protocol and these questions can be found in Attachment C. Following completion of the tasks, participants will complete a brief satisfaction questionnaire (Attachment D).
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. Participants will be paid $40 for their assistance in this project.
The estimated time for completion of the experimental session is one hour. Thus, the maximum burden time for this research is 30 hours.
The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:
Kathleen T. Ashenfelter, Ph.D.
Center for Survey Measurement
Room 5K505
U.S. Census Bureau
Washington, D.C. 20233
301-763-4922
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Kathy |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-02 |