Ag Labor Cognitive Testing

2018 Agricultural Labor Survey

Potential probe questions for cognitive interviews

Operator and contractor questionnaire

November 2017

For any/all sections:

• How did you come up with your answer for that question?

• What does this question mean to you in your own words?

• Did the respondent leave any cells blank in this section?

• Other emergent probes as needed.

Section 1:

• How do you define “hired workers”?

Section 2:

• How do you pay your workers? Is it hourly, weekly, month, or something else?

• Do you provide any additional pay besides an hourly rate to any workers?

  • What do you call that pay? Incentive pay or bonus payor piece rate pay or something else? How and when is that provided and under what circumstances?

• Tell me about the workers you included in this section.

• Are there any workers that you did not include in this section?

• For operations only – do you use any contract labor? Did you include those workers here?

• Did you read the instructions, including the “include” and “exclude” lists?

• What time frame were you thinking about when you answered these questions?

• How did you decide who to include on each line of the table?

• How did you decide which category to use for your workers?

• What does the term “base wage paid per hour” mean to you? How did you come up with our answers for this column? Did you use records, memory, something else? <if applicable,> Did you include any incentive pay? Overtime pay? Money paid on a piece rate basis?

• How did you come up with your answers for the column labeled “Total Gross Wages that Week”?

• How did you come up with your answers for the column labeled “Total Gross Wages that Week”? What did you include in your answers? Did you include incentive pay? Did you include overrtime pay? Did you include any money paid on a piece rate basis?

Section 4:

For the question “During 2018, what was or will be the largest number of hired workers, including paid family members, on the payroll on any one day?”:

• What does this question mean to you in your own words?

• How did you come up with your answer for this question?

• What time frame were you thinking about when answering this question?

For the question “During 2018, did or will this operation have any H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers on the payroll?”:

• What does the term “H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers” mean to you?

• If hired these types of workers, Did you hire the H-2A workers under a contract?

• What time frame were you thinking about when answering this question?