ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey
Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission, Part B
Submitted to:
Office of Management & Budget (OMB)
Submitted by:
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD)
August 24, 2016
1. Respondent Universe, Sampling Selection, and Expected Response Rates
Overview of Survey Materials
The materials used to administer the ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey will include an advance notification letter (Appendix A) and the survey instrument, which will be available in English and Spanish (Appendix B).
Advance Notification Letter
All households selected to participate in the ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey will receive an advance notification letter 2 to 3 weeks prior to receiving a telephone call to complete the survey. The advance notification letter will provide a detailed description of the ConnectHome initiative and the importance of participating in the survey. The letter will notify participants that the information they provide will be kept confidential and that their housing benefits will not be affected by taking part in the survey. Households will be offered a $15 gift card incentive for participation to boost response rates; the advance notification letter describes the $15 gift card.
The advance notification letter will be signed by Everyone On, a partner of the ConnectHome initiative, in an effort to assure potential respondents of the legitimacy of the survey data collection. The letter appears in appendix A.
Survey Instrument
The draft ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey includes approximately 80 questions. Initial estimates suggest the average interview length will be no more than 20 minutes, and these estimates were confirmed during the pretest phase in July. The survey covers the following topics: households’ use of Internet and technology in general; households’ use of Internet for education, employment, and health purposes; digital literacy; and demographic characteristics. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will translate the survey into Spanish. The draft survey instrument is shown in appendix B.
Sampling
Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—or a partner of HUD, such as a PHA in a participating community—will be providing Insight the sampling frame of phone numbers and names for the heads of household for households that have recently obtained high-speed Internet access in their homes through ConnectHome. If possible, a secondary phone number for these households will be provided to increase the likelihood of reaching selected households.
HUD will provide a preliminary estimate of the size of the frame to Insight by early July. If fewer than 2,500 households are included in the frame, Insight will conduct the survey using a census instead of a sample. Insight will be providing a memo summarizing this approach by July 27. HUD will provide a final estimate of the frame size and a preliminary list of names and phone numbers to Insight by August 17. HUD has indicated that the August 10 list may represent only a portion of the total sample frame because of the timing of the ConnectHome rollout period. HUD may need to provide additional names and phone numbers 1 or 2 months after August 10. However, Insight will need to know the total size of the sample frame by July 13 to design the sampling approach, and to receive the frame file by August 17 to conduct the sampling and QA process. Phone numbers provided later in the fielding period would reduce the time available for the call center to attempt to reach the households and complete the surveys.
Expected response rates
2. Procedures for the collection of information
Once the instrument is finalized and the sampling is completed, Insight’s subcontractor, ICF International (ICF), will prepare to field the survey. This section describes the process for programming the survey and training call center interviewers for the ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey.
Programming the Survey
Upon receipt of the final survey document, the first step in computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) programming will be to reformat the questionnaire to ensure all questions are included in the survey for the location specified. Logic statements will be added at the beginning of each question to make it clear to the survey programmer which respondents should be asked each question and for which respondents certain questions should be skipped. Once the questionnaire document is prepared for CATI programming, the document will be sent back to Insight for final approval. After receiving approval, ICF International (ICF) will program the survey.
ICF International has Spanish-speaking interviewers; the survey may be conducted in Spanish as needed.
New Hire Training
Superior data collection performance depends on call center staff prepared with training beyond basic question-by-question reviews. This training begins with new hire training. New interviewers participate in a rigorous 2-day training that—
Gives them an excellent foundation in proper interviewing techniques
Teaches them techniques for gaining respondent trust and cooperation
Instructs them on how to work efficiently within the CATI program software
Emphasizes the importance of survey work and their role within the project
New interviewers then receive extensive hands-on practice with the CATI system and work through an exhaustive series of practice interviews and interviewing situations.
On the second day of training, trainers discuss techniques for—
Handling difficult situations
Probing for answers in challenging situations
Identifying a member of the household
Handling additional refusal aversion/conversion techniques
All interviewers participate in monthly interviewer enhancement courses. ICF International has developed 12 refresher courses, one for each month, on topics for which skills can continually be honed and improved, such as bypassing gatekeepers and countering refusal aversion.
3. Methods to maximize response rates
Fielding the Survey: Data Collection
The advance notification letters will be mailed to sampled households 2–3 weeks prior to ICF International initiating data collection. The data collection period will be three months, from October through December 2016.
The survey instrument will use a screener question at the beginning of the survey to confirm respondent households include children under age 19. ICF International’s CATI software package will release sample records as needed throughout fielding of the phone survey to allow for up to 10 attempts by telephone to reach each sample household. The CATI software will be programmed to adhere to the following best practice dialing protocols:
Setting allowable calling times
Defining maximum number of contact attempts
Rotating the day of the week call attempts are made
Prioritizing scheduled callback appointments
Suspending interviews as necessary
Calling busy lines back at a minimum of 10-minute intervals
Automatically attempting a second call for partial completes
Disposing of fax lines
ICF International will employ a proven strategy for achieving excellent response rates. Tactics will include the following:
Displaying caller identification
Prioritizing scheduled appointments
Allowing appointments outside usual calling hours
Focusing on completing first contacts
Streamlining interviewer screens
Ongoing training
Tracking response and cooperation rates
Using an optimal interviewing protocol
4. Pre-Testing
The survey instrument will be refined to incorporate feedback from HUD, ConnectHome stakeholders, and pretest participants.
To obtain feedback on the materials’ clarity, relevance, and design, Insight will pretest the instrument with up to 5 participants that have recently received high-speed Internet access in their homes through ConnectHome. The pretest interviews will last 45 minutes to an hour, and Insight will provide a $15 gift card as a token of appreciation for participants’ time. Insight will use the feedback from the pretest to recommend revisions to the instrument and cover letter, and HUD will translate the instrument and cover letter into Spanish.
The results of the pre-test are in Appendix D and resulted in a revision of the telephone Survey in Appendix B.
5. Individuals consulted on statistical aspects and individuals collecting and/or analyzing data
Insight Policy Research and its subcontractor ICF International are collecting the information for the ConnectHome Internet Subscribers Telephone Survey. With HUD oversight, Insight Policy Research and its subcontractors are responsible for developing the survey documents included in this submission. Key Staff include:
Brittany McGill, Insight Policy Research, (703) 504-9485
Carole Trippe, Insight Policy Research, (703) 504-9498
Page
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | David Greenberg;Victoria Quiroz-Becerra |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-23 |