Survey Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional survey work under the generic clearance for Data User Evaluation Surveys (OMB number 0607-0760).

The Census Bureau’s Economic Planning and Coordination Division is planning a survey to evaluate efforts to promote response in the 2007 Economic Census through trade associations and other intermediaries. The feedback from this survey will help the Census Bureau plan corresponding promotional efforts for the 2012 Economic Census as well as efforts to promote data products from the 2007 census.

In December 2008, we will email about 11,000 intermediary organizations--trade associations, trade publications, chambers of commerce, news media, and state data centers--which received our promotional communications last year. The email will solicit participation in one of 5 web-based surveys. The surveys are essentially the same, differing only in wording (e.g., “members” versus “readers”) and in removing categories not applicable to particular groups.

The differences among the 5 variations of the survey include:

Question 1: The phone call/personal visit category is applicable only to trade associations

Question 2: Action categories are modified to be appropriate to the group

Question 1-3: URLs are customized to the group

Questions 6: Terminology customized to the group: “members”, “readers”, or “businesses in your area”

Question 13: Role categories are modified to be appropriate to the group

Economic Planning and Coordination Division staff have reviewed and internally tested the questionnaires for ease of use and content appropriateness. We estimate respondent burden at five minutes per questionnaire, and at a response rate of five percent, for a total respondent burden of 46 hours.

We plan to maximize response rates by sending reminder emails a few days after the initial solicitation.

For further information about this study, please contact Paul Zeisset at 301-763-4151 or paul.t.zeisset@census.gov.