Memo

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 interviews in 3 languages, Vietnamese, Russian, and Arabic, using a flip-style bilingual questionnaire.

This submission seeks approval for a segment of a large research contract, under which we are

developing and testing both English language and non-English language materials for various modes in preparation for various 2015, 2016 and 2017 Decennial Census Tests. The research is sponsored by the Decennial Management Division (DMD) at the Census Bureau and the ultimate goal is preparation for the 2020 Census.

This is the eighth OMB submission based on the larger research project. We received approval in November, 2014 for Round 1 of NRFU (CAPI) testing and Round 1 of paper testing and in December, 2014 for Round 1 of internet testing. We received approval in February, 2015 for Round 2 of paper testing. We received approval for Round 1 of cognitive testing in five languages in March, 2015. We received approval for focus group testing in 7 languages in June of 2015, and for Round 2 of internet testing in July of 2015. We requested approval two weeks ago for testing in Chinese and Korean languages. Those parts of the project are completed, currently underway, or about to begin.

The cognitive interviews will test flip-style bilingual paper questionnaires (English/Vietnamese, English/Russian, and English/Arabic) and will be carried out by the contractors, Research Triangle Institute (RTI) & Research Support Services (RSS) in October, November, and December of 2015. There will be 15 respondents interviewed per language, for a total of 45 interviews.

This research is being done to meet the Census Bureau’s pretesting requirements to ensure that Vietnamese, Russian, and Arabic-language materials that will be used in future Census Tests are cognitively tested with respondents prior to going into the field. The goal of this cognitive testing study is to uncover any translations that are incorrect, difficult for respondents to understand, or culturally inappropriate.

Methodology: Cognitive interviews will be conducted using think aloud, concurrent and retrospective probing. Concurrent probes will be administered after groups of related questions have been administered to respondents. Respondents will complete a flip-style form, followed by discussion of key terms, questions and concepts as part of a debriefing.

Screening: The previously approved respondent screener from earlier rounds of testing will be used (see enclosure 3). Respondents will be recruited from a variety of national origins, educational backgrounds, and number of years living in the US, as well as with varying household compositions.

Testing will take place at locations convenient for participants. We expect to screen around 180-225 respondents to arrive at 45 completed cases. Screening takes approximately 6 minutes per case. Thus, the maximum burden for the 45 cases is 67.5 hours total, 45 hours for interviewing (1 hour per completed interview) and 22.5 hours (6 minutes X 225) for recruiting.

Respondents will be offered incentives of $40 to offset the cost of their participation in the 60-minute interview, such as transportation costs or childcare costs. Participants will be recruited using a combination of word-of-mouth, flyers, online and paper advertisements that were approved in a previous submission (see below).

Below is a list of materials to be used in the current study. Included is a separate section for materials that have already been approved by OMB. In the cases where the documents were already approved, we include a reference to the attachment number in the previously approved submission (originally submitted on 10/20/14).

1. Flip-style bilingual census questionnaire [this enclosure is English/Spanish because the English/Vietnamese, English/Russian, and English/Arabic versions are still being translated, but the English text is the same] (Enclosure 1)

2. Draft protocol used for the study (Enclosure 2)

3. English recruitment screener. (Enclosure 3. This document was already approved, but is being resubmitted for your convenience. The file name from the 10/20/14 submission when this file was originally approved was: OMB1425_2015_Census_Test_cognitive_enc8.doc)

List of materials already approved by OMB for the larger language research contract

4. Recruitment “teasers” to be used in advertising materials (already approved. File name from 10/20/14 submission: OMB1425_2015_Census_Test_cognitive_enc10.doc)

5. Recruitment flyers (already approved. File name from 10/20/14 submission: OMB1425_2015_Census_Test_cognitive_enc11.doc)

6. Payment voucher (already approved. File name from 10/20/14 submission: OMB1425_2015_Census_Test_cognitive_enc9.doc)

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

Mikelyn Meyers

Center for Survey Methods Research

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-9008

[email protected]

CC: E. Santanaortiz (DMD), D. Souders (DMD), P. Goerman (CSM)