Non-substantive Change Request

February 2017

Non-substantive Change Request

(0535-0007) Stocks Reports - Hops

Following a round of cognitive interviews with hops’ growers, brewers and dealers, NASS will be combining the Dealer and Grower questionnaires into one questionnaire. We are able to remove several questions and to add clarity to a few of the remaining questions.

NASS is currently approved to conduct three hops stocks surveys (brewers, dealers and growers) twice a year. Due to the number of dealers and growers who are in both surveys, the operators who were in the cognitive interviews requested that NASS combine the two surveys (dealers and growers) into one survey.

The estimated sample size for the combined survey is expected to increase the overall number of operations from 140 to 150. The number of responses will increase by 45 and the overall burden will increase by about 4 hours.

Cognitive testing also revealed that the concept of hop ownership was vague, making it difficult to appropriately answer questions about “hops to which you actually hold title.”  Therefore, the construct of the survey was changed to “on your operation” instead of “to which you hold title.”  This was found to be a much more clear definition for respondents.