2012 Surveyor Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will conduct respondent debriefings on the Surveyor software application that was used to collect data for the 2010 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) and 2010 Report of Organization. The purpose of the ASM is to collect statistics such as employment, payroll, cost of materials consumed, operating expenses, value of shipments, and inventories from manufacturing establishments. The purpose of the Report of Organization is to obtain current organization and operating information on multi-establishment firms in order to maintain the Business Register. Both of these surveys are collected annually in years when an Economic Census is not collected.

The purpose of the respondent debriefings is to identify what areas of improvement are still necessary to make Surveyor a more usable and desirable data collection tool for the 2012 Economic Census. The respondent debriefings will cover many aspects of the software including the various views of the data, forms, edits, and the exporting and importing feature. Findings will be used to inform the redesign of the software. Enclosed are example screens from the 2007 Economic Census, 2010 ASM, and 2010 Report of Organization. A draft protocol is also enclosed.

From June through August 2011 we will conduct one round of respondent debriefing interviews with respondents from up to 30 companies that recently reported electronically to the 2010 ASM and 2010 Report of Organization in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area and two other cities yet to be determined. We plan to visit companies in a variety of industries in the manufacturing and service sectors. Findings will be used to revise the Surveyor instrument.

Interviews will be conducted at the business location by staff from the Response Improvement Research Staff within the Economic Directorate of the Census Bureau. Subject area specialists involved in the Surveyor redesign will accompany the usability tester on most, if not all, of the interviews. They will assist with respondent debriefing, especially in cases where additional clarification of the subject matter is required. Interviews will be audio recorded, with the participants’ permission, to aid researchers in accurately reporting findings and developing recommendations.

After respondents are recruited, participants will receive follow-up reminders about their appointments by fax or telephone. Participants will be informed that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by Census Bureau staff involved in the research project. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

We estimate that it will be necessary to interview only one respondent at each company. We estimate the length of the interviews will average 1.5 hours. Thus, the maximum estimated burden for this research is 45 hours.

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

Amy Anderson

Response Improvement Research Staff

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-7544

Amy.E.Anderson@census.gov