Meeting 21St Century Demographic Data Needs Implementing the American Community Survey

By U. S. Census Bureau Department

Book Id: WPLBN0000587258
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 2,889,947 KB.
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Meeting 21St Century Demographic Data Needs Implementing the American Community Survey
Author:	U. S. Census Bureau Department
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Government publications, Census., Census report
Collections:	U.S. Census Bureau Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	U.S. Census Bureau Department


Citation APA MLA Chicago Bureau Department, U. C. (n.d.). Meeting 21St Century Demographic Data Needs Implementing the American Community Survey. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
Statistical Reference Document

Excerpt
Excerpt: At the request of Congress, the Census Bureau conducted a test to provide answers to key questions about the impact, if any, that a change to voluntary methods would have on mail response, survey quality, and costs of the American Community Survey (ACS). Meeting 21st Century Demographic Data Needs Implementing the American Community Survey, Report 3: Testing the Use of Voluntary Methods, answers these key questions (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). This report provides additional results from that test including greater detail for some of the measures included in the initial report. This report also examines if different mandatory and voluntary messages had an effect on the willingness of respondents to return questionnaires in the mail (mail cooperation) and their willingness to provide complete survey data (data completeness). The major findings included in this report are summarized below.

Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2.1 Design of the ACS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2.2 Mail Data Collection in the ACS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3.1 Sample Design and Experimental Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3.2 Preparatory Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3.3 Quality and Performance Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3.4 Statistical Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1 Respondent Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1.1 What impact did the wording of the voluntary message have on mail cooperation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1.2 In a mandatory survey, did a more user-friendly design improve rates of mail cooperation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4.1.3 What was the difference in the timing of mail responses? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.1.4 How were the interviews distributed across the three modes of data collection when the survey was voluntary versus mandatory? Did this vary by race or ethnicity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.2 Data Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.1 What impact did the wording of the voluntary message have on the percentage of the initial sample that was interviewed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.2 What was the effect of the more direct voluntary message on unit nonresponse? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.3 What impact did the use of voluntary methods and the wording of the voluntary message have on levels of item nonresponse? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.2.4 Did the use of voluntary methods lead to higher levels of item nonresponse for certain racial or ethnic groups? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.2.5 Did the use of voluntary methods impact the completeness of any specific questions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 6. REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17