Submission info

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance Data User Evaluation Surveys” (OMB Control Number 0607-0760)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Economic Census Round 3 Focus Group Discussion

PURPOSE: To obtain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing Census economic survey respondents, gain insights on approaches to increase participation, determine the best way to communicate to participants for multiple surveys and to finalize elements of the 2017 Economic Census program prior to communication launch.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: Small, medium, and large size companies

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other:

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: ___Rebecca E. Vilky_____________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [x] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published?

[ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [X] Yes [] No

Standard compensation for Census Bureau focus groups is $75 for each participant.

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Screening	1,500	5 minutes	125 hours
Responding-16 focus groups	160	120 minutes	320 hours
Totals			445 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is minimal.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [x ] Yes [ ] No

The estimated 1500 recruiting calls is based upon the expertise of the focus group contractor, who believe we may require this amount to yield between 8-10 participants per group. The 1500 would be extracted from a broader listed provided by Census Bureau staff, based upon respondents from the 2012 Economic Census.  These lists will be categorized by company size to meet our research requirements to conduct focus groups with both large and small businesses. 

From the Census-provided listings, the contractor will prioritize cases by the ZIP Codes closest to the focus group facilities we use.  In addition, we expect to exhaust nearly all the cases from the large/medium sized companies, since there are significantly fewer in this group than in the small company group.  Thus, there is no plan to perform mathematical sampling of the listings of previous survey respondents.

The primary target audience of persons involved in the completion of government requests for business information in small, medium and large size firms who were known to have been Census economic survey respondents. The majority of the recruiting of participants will be done by professional telephone interviews. We plan to call 1,500 potential focus group participants for each focus group to recruit 8-10 qualified participants.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[X] Other, Explain: Focus Groups

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [] No

1.      Line of Business – WBA Research, (WBA) is a full-service market research company, serving clients in a wide range of industries including, but not limited to, public sector agencies, utilities, health care, financial services, transportation, travel and tourism, advertising, public relations, associations and non-profits, and education.

2.      Sub function –

3.      Number of Respondents for small entity - 0

4.      Affected Public – Small, Medium, Large businesses

5.      Percentage of respondents reporting electronically - 0

Please submit all instruments, instructions, correspondences (emails, letters, etc.) to respondents, and scripts as separate documents along with this request document.

Every instrument must have the following displayed –

OMB Control No. 0607-0760

Expiration Date: 07/31/2017