OMB Letter

Generic Information Collection Request Addendum

Request: There are several purposes of this letter. As indicated in the original OMB submission titled, “Web Survey Design Standards Online Research” and approved on February 21, 2020, we would share the questionnaires used post-hoc for the remaining data collection studies. We have included the online questionnaire used in the second study which ran June 8 through June 16, 2020 and which collected data from 520 participants. We are also notifying OMB of two future studies. The third study uses slightly modified questions from the original OMB package. The fourth study includes new tasks not in the original package. We seek approval for the questions in the fourth study. We also request additional burden hours for the remaining experimental online surveys.

Purpose: The purpose of this project remains the same. The results of these studies will inform future mobile and PC web designs used at the U.S. Census Bureau for household and economic surveys and censuses. The compilation of the results from these studies will be used to create a guidelines document that Census Bureau programmers will use to create future online surveys.

The survey used in Study 2 is enclosed. The purpose of the second study was to investigate PC designs for grids, specify write-in box placement, and optimal designs for month of the year and state dropdown entry. We also replicated one question from study 1, the predictive text entry for college and universities.

The survey planned for Study 3 is attached. The purpose of the third study is to investigate placement of instruction, none boxes, and write-ins with additional qualifiers.

The survey planned for Study 4 is attached. The purpose of the fourth study is to investigate optimal navigation button placement and color, to collect data on what different button labels mean to respondents, and to further the data collection on the optimal month dropdown designs.

Population of Interest: No change.

Timeline: No change

Language: No change.

Method: No change.

Sample: We request an additional sample of 1,129 completed surveys because differences in timing and accuracy have been very small in these experiments. The table below contains the original request, the date of the study, or expected data, and the revised sample request. The column on the far right is the additional sample requested.

Table 1: Sample request

	Date of study	Estimated in Original OMB	Revised	Additional sample
Qualtrics sample Study 1	March 6-7, 2020	400	409	9
Qualtrics sample Study 2	June 8-16, 2020	400	520	120
Qualtrics sample Study 3	Est. August 2020	400	500	100
Qualtrics sample Study 4	Est. August 2020	400	400
Qualtrics sample Study 5	Est. October 2020	400	500	100
Qualtrics sample New study 6	January 2021		500	500
Affinity or contact frame sample Study 1	January 2021	400	500	100
Affinity or contact frame sample Study 2	2021	400	500	100
Affinity or contact frame sample Study 3	2021	400	500	100
Total		3,200	4,329	1,129

Burden hours: We request an additional 188 hours of burden for an additional 1,129 completed responses to a 10 minute survey.

Table 2. Total Estimated Burden

Category of Respondent	No. of additional respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Online general population sample	1,129	10 minutes	188 hours

Length of interview: No change

Recruitment: No change.

Protocol: No change.

Use of Incentive: No change.

Below is a list the enclosures. Those include the original OMB request – approved February 21, 2020 and the three survey enclosures. Additional surveys will be sent post-hoc as indicated in the original OMB letter.

1. OMB Original request (Previously approved by original OMB clearance – enclosure 1)

2. Study 2 questions (Enclosure 2)

3. Study 3 questions (Enclosure 3)

4. Study 4 questions (Enclosure 4)

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

Elizabeth Nichols

Center for Behavioral Science Methods

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1724

[email protected]

Enclosures

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