1024-0224 Programmatic form for Night Skies Studies

National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Social Science Program

OMB Control Number 1024-0224
Current Expiration Date:8-31-2014

Programmatic Approval for NPS-Sponsored Public Surveys
Submission Date :
1.
2.

Project Title: Analyzing the Importance of Night Sky Quality at Acadia National Park
Abstract: Concern for the preservation of dark skies and the problem of light pollution is rising in
public consciousness. This shifting attitude is evidenced in national parks by increasing
attendance at stargazing programs. However, it is important to establish indicators
and standards for high quality nighttime experiences in parks. Additionally, little is
known about the social, cultural, and symbolic attachments to night sky resources
held by various audiences. To address these two related concerns, two research
methods will be used. The focus of the survey portion of the research is to assess the
importance of night skies and related resources to visitors and support the
establishment of visitor-based indicators and standards of quality for night sky
viewing experiences. The focus of the interview portion of the research will be to
assess the meaning of night skies and related resources to visitors, and leaders of
surrounding communities.
(not to exceed 150 words)

3.

Principal Investigator Contact Information
First Name:
Title:
Affiliation:
Street Address:
City:
Phone:
Email:

4.

Robert
Last Name: Manning
Professor
University of Vermont
313A Aiken Center
Burlington
State: VT
Zip code: 05405
(802)656-3096
Fax: (802)656-8683
[email protected]

Park or Program Liaison Contact Information
First Name:
Title:
Park Office
Street Address:
City:
Phone:
Email:

Chadwick
Last Name: Moore
Night Skies Program Manager
Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division
1201 Oakridge Drive, Suite 100
Fort Collins
State: CO
Zip code: 80525
(970)267-7212
Fax: (970)267-2109
[email protected]

Project Information
1

5. Park(s) For Which Research is to be Conducted: Acadia National Park (ACAD)
6. Survey Dates:

7/1/13

TO

8/31/13

7. Type of Information Collection Instrument (Check ALL that Apply)



Mail-Back
Questionnaire



On-Site
Questionnaire



Face-to-Face
Interview



Telephone
Survey



Focus Groups

Other (explain)
8.

Survey Justification:
(Use as much space
as needed; if
necessary include
additional
explanation on a
separate page.)

Social science research in support of park planning and management is
mandated in the NPS Management Policies 2006 (Section 8.11.1, “Social
Science Studies”). The NPS pursues a policy that facilitates social science studies
in support of the NPS mission to protect resources and enhance the enjoyment
of present and future generations (National Park Service Act of 1916, 38 Stat
535, 16 USC 1, et seq.). NPS policy mandates that social science research will be
used to provide an understanding of park visitors, the non-visiting public,
gateway communities and regions, and human interactions with park
resources. Such studies are needed to provide a scientific basis for park
planning, development.
The National Park Service (NPS) is currently engaged in efforts to inventory
night sky quality. A critical step in the management of natural lights capes is to
measure and inventory the night sky condition. To address the measurement
of this resource, the NPS Night Skies Team developed a system to measure and
monitor changes to night sky brightness. Since 2001 the NPS has systematically
inventoried night sky quality in approximately 100 parks. The data show that
nearly every park measured exhibits some degree of light pollution. There is
very little research available that points to the impact that light pollution has
on human expectations and attitudes related to night skies. Combined with
growing night sky data, social science research will help the NPS to manage
this resource for the benefit of parks and the people who visit them.
The NPS Dark Skies Program has commissioned the Park Studies Laboratory at
the University of Vermont (UVM) to conduct social science research that will
address questions of visitor attitudes, expectations and acceptable thresholds of what they consider natural, beautiful, and inspirational - using normative
theory and related empirical methods. The purpose is to investigate the
symbolic meanings of night sky experiences expressed by a sample of park
visitors at Acadia National Park, agency personnel, and gateway community
leaders associated with the park. The overall goal is to help the Night Skies
Division understand the subjective qualities that make personal experiences of
night skies at park settings rewarding in the context of other activities
undertaken during a national park visit.
The interest in night skies extends well beyond the NPS. This research will also
be helpful to multiple state, federal, and private business that report wellattended stargazing programs and private tours. Public interest in connecting

2

with night skies has resulted in the appearance of the term Astro-Tourism that
focuses tourism and the night skies, which is a quickly becoming a significant
economic force in regions still retaining relatively dark night skies. This
collection will provide the information that is at the heart of various campaigns
to develop and dedicate ‘dark sky’ parks and reserves where the night sky is
preserved for future generations from light pollution.
This research will use a two phased approach. A questionnaire will be used to
survey visitors at Acadia National Park; and qualitative interviews will be
conducted with visitors, agency personnel and community leaders. The
interviews will go further than the questionnaire to determine the cultural
symbolism associated with night sky objects or features; the meanings of
places / sites where night sky experiences are notable to visitors; the nature of
stories told to express and solidify ties between people and place; the ways
that people describe and make sense of night sky-related experiences; and the
nature of myths, stories, and imagery related to night skies.
This research will help enhance the mission of the Night Skies Division by:
1) providing an understanding of the importance of night skies to the
general public
2) allowing the NPS to set management targets related to visitor use for
night sky quality conditions
3) adding to the general understanding of the value of conservation of
natural places, and
4) by adding to the knowledge base of the ecosystem services are valued by
modern society.

9.

Survey/Interview (a) Respondent Universe:
Methodology: (Use
as much space as
Survey
The respondent universe for the on-site questionnaire will be all visitors
needed; if
(age 18 and over) to trailhead, campground, and viewpoint sampling sites at
necessary include
Acadia National Park, between July 1 and August 31, 2013.
additional
explanation on a
Interviews
separate page.)
The respondent universe for the interviews will be all visitors to
campgrounds, visitor centers, and selected viewpoints at Acadia National
Park, age 18 and over, between July 1 and August 31, 2013. We will also
interview a sample of NPS personnel and community leaders in gateway
communities.
(b) Sampling Plan/Procedures:
Survey
The sampling period includes the park’s peak use periods, during the
summer and during the day (between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. - the time of day
when the majority of visitation occurs.). Sampling will be evenly divided
between the trailhead, viewpoint, and campground locations. Seven days
will be sampled at each trailhead, viewpoint, and campground location,

3

with both weekday periods and weekend periods represented proportional
to use. This will ensure that a sufficient number of questionnaires will be
completed to make inferences to the visitor populations at these locations
with an acceptable degree of precision.
During each sampling period, a trained surveyor will be stationed at
selected locations in the park. When the sampling period begins, the
surveyor will approach groups exiting trailheads, visiting viewpoints, or
staying in their campsite and ask them to participate in the survey. If
members of the visitor groups agree to participate, the eligible person in
the group whose birthday is closest to the sampling day will be asked to
complete the questionnaire. After he/she completes the questionnaire,
he/she will return it to the survey attendant. When the surveyor has
completed his/her contact with the group, the surveyor will ask the next
available group exiting the trailhead, visiting the viewpoint, or in the next
campsite to participate in the survey. This process will continue throughout
the sampling period. Visitors will be asked to complete the on-site
questionnaire in the presence of the survey attendant, who will answer any
questions that arise and collect the questionnaires upon completion. A
screening question will be asked to assure that participants will not be
surveyed more than once.
Sampling Plan/Procedures:
Interviews
Visitor Interviews:
An interviewer will intercept visitors before, during, or after their recreation
experiences at places where people typically gather (attending day or
evening programs, at campsites, at visitor centers, etc.). Interviewees will
be selected based on visible criteria (alternating male/female; a range of
ages; and those from different activity settings in the park) to maximize
variation across interviewees. Intercepted visitors will be asked if they
would be willing to participate in a short interview (approx. 30 minutes). If a
person declines to participate, they will be thanked for their consideration,
and an alternate will be asked. (It is our experience that very few people are
likely to decline a chance to talk about their experiences; if they do, they
often re-schedule for another time.) The desired sample size is 75 individual
park visitors in total (3 to 5 interviews per day, over the span of a month).
Interviews will be recorded with the permission of each interviewee. The
interviewer will also take notes during the interview as a safeguard in the
event of equipment failure.
Community Leader Interviews:
Interviews will be conducted with gateway community leaders (n=20).
Working with current NPS personnel, we will identify several target
individuals in relevant administrative positions, and then will use standard
“snowball sampling” methods to obtain referrals to other individuals.
Snowball sampling does not produce a random sample; rather, it is
intended to allow researchers to analyze the shared meanings held across
4

wide groups of people in organizations. NPS personnel at Acadia National
Park and leaders in adjacent communities will be contacted through their
places of work, and asked to participate in a half-hour long, semi-structured
interview at a designated time and place. The desired sample sizes are 20
NPS personnel and 20 community leaders.
(c) Instrument Administration:
Survey
Visitors at the study sites in the parks will be read the following script:
"Excuse me, sir/ma'am. We're conducting a study for the National
Park Service to better understand visitor experiences concerning
night sky viewing. Your participation is voluntary and all responses
are anonymous. Would you be willing to take 15 minutes to help?”
If YES: "Thank you. Who in your personal group (who is at least 18 years of
age) has the next birthday? Would you be willing to complete this
questionnaire? Have you completed a questionnaire or interview at a
different location in the park?”
If YES: “Thank you, but we can only accept one response per personal
group. Thank you for your time.”
If NO: “Thank you for participating.”
Visitors will then be given a paper questionnaire to complete. The
questionnaire will instruct respondents to view a series of 5 night sky
simulation images mounted side-by-side on a 3’ by 5’ poster. The survey
attendant will assist respondents as they answer this portion of the
questionnaire. Respondents will then answer a series of questions in the
questionnaires while seeing these images. After completing this portion of
the questionnaire, respondents will continue to answer the remaining
questions.
If NO: “I understand. I hope you enjoy your visit.”
During the survey administration the respondents will be asked to rate a
series of photographs to indicate their opinion of how the night sky should
look for stargazing or viewing (see photo posters). The survey administrator
will show the respondents a series of photographs. The photographs will be
shown to the respondent one at a time. The order that photos will be
presented to different respondents will alternate between incrementally
increasing and decreasing the number stars and human caused light. A
total of five photographs will be used for the “stargazing” questions.
Interview
Interviews will be conducted from a pre-determined script (see two attached
interview protocols, one for visitors, and one for community leaders).

5

Visitors will be approached by an interviewer and asked to participate in the
study. The interviewer will use the following script to guide this introduction:
“Hi, my name is _______. I’m from the University of Vermont Park Studies
Laboratory. We’re helping the National Park Service gather information
about night sky experiences at national parks. Could I ask you a few
questions about your experiences related to the night skies? Participation is
voluntary and your responses will be anonymous.
If No: Thank you for considering the request. Have a good day.
If Yes: This will take about a half hour, and I’d like to record our conversation
so I can remember it later. Is this OK with you? Have you filled out a
questionnaire elsewhere in the park?”
 If No: “Great, let’s begin the interview.”
 If Yes: “Thank you for your time. We only need one response per
personal group.”
Interviews will be tape recorded only after consent is given, and the tapes will
be later transcribed to aid in analysis of the interview content.
The interviews will be conducted in a conversational, semi-structured format.
This will entail using an identical set of questions to guide each interview. The
interviewer is, however, permitted to ask additional questions that would
prompt the participant to add to the breadth or depth of the answer initially
provided. Both guiding and follow-up questions will be based on exploration
of the following three topics: experiences and enjoyment of night skies,
meanings of night skies and night sky activities, and management/policy.
Visitors will be assured that their responses will remain anonymous.
Immediately after an interview is completed, the interviewee will be provided
a small card to be filled out at that time (see attached). The card will ask for
demographic and socioeconomic information, and also request some
information about the visitor’s current visit to the Park.
Interviews with community leaders will be arranged based on personal contact
from the PI /research assistant, and will also be guided by a semi-structured
interview format (similar to that used for visitors and noted above).
Participation will be voluntary. Because the individuals in both of these groups
will not be anonymous (they are public figures and agency representatives),
they will be promised anonymity. Interviews will be taped and transcribed, and
interviewees will be asked to review their own transcript for completeness and
to reduce any transcription errors. For these samples, both guiding and followup questions will be based on exploration of the following topics: experiences
related to night skies, the interests and abilities of agency/community to
manage for such experiences, and current initiatives.
(d) Expected Response Rate/Confidence Levels: Survey
The overall survey sample size is expected to be approximately 429 visitors.
Based on previous experience in conducting similar surveys, it is expected that
6

about 70% of visitors (about 300 individuals) will be willing to participate. In a
similar night skies and visitor experience study at campgrounds in Acadia
National Park in 2012 that used similar sampling methods, a response rate of
70% was attained. Another night skies study at Acadia, Grand Canyon, and
Yosemite National Parks, and Golden Gate National Recreation Area attained a
70% response rate. Study findings are estimated to be accurate within 6
percentage points, based on a sample size of approximately 300 from each
park using a 95% confidence level. This will be sufficient for NPS planning
purposes. The number of people in each visitor party and date and time of
refusals will be recorded and reported on a refusal log.
Number of Initial
Contacts

Expected
Response Rate

Expected Number
of Responses

Margin of Error
+/- %

429

70%

300

6%

Expected Response Rate/Confidence Levels: Interview
The intended sample size will be 75 visitors, and 20 community leaders. To
obtain this number of visitors, we will need to contact about 88 recreationists but to obtain 20 community leaders, we expect that all those we contact will
agree to participate (the topic is relevant to their work, and public officials
typically do not decline opportunities to share their views). The number of
refusals for visitors will be recorded and reported. As with most qualitative
methodologies, the sample will not be generalizable to the entire population
of visitors.
(e) Strategies for dealing with potential non-response bias: Survey
Non-response bias will be examined by comparing selected characteristics of
the sample population with characteristics observed and recorded in every
group contacted (e.g., group size, gender and group type). Additionally, all
visitors approached will be asked to answer three key questions from the
survey:
1. Is viewing the night sky (or “stargazing”) important to you?
2. Have you stargazed or observed the night sky in this park (including
ranger-led programs) before this visit?
3. What is your home zip code or country of residence?
These results and observational data will be recorded and compared to results
from the respondents completing and returning the questionnaire to see if
non-response bias is present. The results of the check for non-response bias
will be reported and implications for data interpretation will be discussed in
any reports prepared for the NPS managers.
Strategies for dealing with potential non-response bias: Interview
Because the sample of respondents is not random (as is typical in standard
qualitative research), we will be unable to make statistical inferences regarding
the population. Distinctly different from quantitative, survey research
procedures, qualitative research typically seeks to select individuals who have
social, demographic, and participation type differences, seeking a broad range
of perspectives so that maximum variability is obtained. As noted above, the
7

purpose of qualitative work described here is to allow researchers to make
interpretations about the ways language is used to express a wide array of
meanings.
(f) Description of any pre-testing and peer review of the methods and/or
instrument (recommended): Survey
The questions included in these surveys have been designed and reviewed by
the PI, research staff and graduate students at the University of Vermont, and
NPS park and regional staff. The questions are similar to those used at several
other national park areas in previous night sky studies and visitor experience
studies. Research methods and findings from related studies in many units of
the National Park System have been compiled into four text books that are
used by students, researchers, and managers to plan, and manage parks and
outdoor recreation (Manning 2007; Manning 2009; Manning 2011).
Description of any pre-testing and peer review of the methods and/or
instrument (recommended): Interview
The interview questions identified for this study have been designed and
reviewed by the research team, which includes an expert in qualitative
research, and by research staff and graduate students. Interview questions are
similar to those used by the qualitative researcher in other completed studies
using narrative, text, and discourse analyses. The proposal and interview
protocol have been peer-reviewed by colleagues. Researchers involved in the
project are qualified and experienced in qualitative research methods, and
have published academic papers on this topic.
10

Burden Estimates Survey
We plan to approach at least 429 individuals during the sampling period.
With an anticipated response rate of 70%, we expect to receive 300 total
responses for this collection.
We expect that the initial contact time will be one minute per person (429
x 1 minute = 7 hours). We expect that a total of 129 (30%) visitors
contacted will refuse to participate in the study, for those individuals we
will record their reason for refusal and ask them to answer the three
questions that will be used for the non-response check. This is estimated to
take no more than 2 minutes (129 x 2 minutes = 4 hours) to complete each
session.
For those who agree to participate, we expect that a total of 300 visitors
will complete and return the survey. With that, an additional 15 minutes
will be required to complete the follow through (300 response x 15
minutes = 75 hours). The total burden for this collection is estimated to be
86 hours.
Interviews
We plan to contact 20 community leaders. We expect no more than 5
minutes will be required to schedule an interview community leader
member (20 community leaders x 5 mins = 3 hours). Thirty minutes will be
required to complete each interview (20 x 30 mins = 20 hours). This makes
8

the estimated total burden for community leaders to be 23 hours.
We plan to approach at least 88 individuals during the sampling period.
With an anticipated response rate of 85% we expect to receive 75 total
completed responses for this collection.
We expect that the initial contact time will be one minute per person (88 x
1 minute = 2 hours). We expect that 13 (15%) visitors will refuse to
participate during the initial on-site contact, for those individuals we will
record their reason for refusal and ask them the information on the
sociodemographic card. This is estimated to take no more than 1 minute
(13 x 1 minutes = 0.2 hours) to complete each session.
For those who agree to participate (n=75) we expect that everyone will
agree to complete the interview (75 respondents x 30 minutes = 38 hours).
The visitor-respondent burden for this collection is estimated to be 39.2
hours.
Survey
Estimated Number of Contacts

Estimation of Time (minutes)

Estimation Burden (hours)

Initial Contacts
On-site Visitors

Initial Contacts
On-site Visitors

1

Initial Contacts
On-site Visitors

7

2

Estimated Burden Hours

4

15

Estimated Burden Hours

75

429

Estimated number of onsite refusals
Total Number of
Responses

129
300

On-site Refusal/
nonresponse
Time to complete and
return surveys

Subtotal

86

Interview
Estimated Number of Contacts
Initial Contacts
Visitors
Community Leaders

88
30

Estimated number refusals
Visitors
Community Leaders
Number of Responses
Visitors
Community Leaders

Initial Contact Visitors
Community Leaders

Estimation of Burden (hours)
1
5

Estimated number refusals
13
10

Total

Estimation of Time (minutes)

75
20

Visitors
Community Leaders
To complete and return
Visitors
Community Leaders

Initial Contact
Visitors
Community Leaders

2
2

Estimated number refusals
1
30
30

Visitors

1

Estimated Burden Hours
Visitors
Community Leaders

Subtotal

38
10
54

Total Combined Burden 141

9

11.

Reporting The results of this information collection activity will be presented in an internal
Plan: agency report made available to the Night Skies division, shared with participating
community leaders, and will also be available upon request.. A copy of the technical
study report will be archived with the Social Science Division of the National Park
Service for inclusion in the Social Science Studies Collection as required by the
Programmatic Approval Process. The key estimates that will be derived from the data
collected will be descriptive in nature, primarily measures of central tendency (mean
and median), dispersion (standard deviation), and frequency distributions. Some tests
for differences in means and proportions may be done. The project results will also be
published in a peer-reviewed scientific publication discussing the methods, results, and
conclusions.

References
Manning, R. (2011). Studies in Outdoor Recreation (Third Edition). Corvallis: Oregon State University Press.
Manning, R. (2009). Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park. Hannover, NH: University Press of New
England.
Manning, R. (2007). Parks and Carrying Capacity: Commons Without Tragedy. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Manning, R. (2001). Visitor Experience and Resource Protection: A Framework for Managing the Carrying Capacity of National Parks.
Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, 19(1):93-108.

10