ASM & COS -- Respondent Debriefings Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting respondent debriefings with respondents from the 2010 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) and the 2010 Report of Organization who have used or attempted to use different methods (electronic and paper) of reporting for these surveys. The goal of these respondent debriefings is to evaluate the web survey’s user interface, identify areas for improvement, and ways to encourage increased electronic response rates.

Single-unit establishments were offered the opportunity to report their data for the 2010 ASM and the 2010 Report of Organization via the Web for the first time. Previously, single-unit respondents that were interested in electronic reporting were required to download a software application. Moving these surveys from a downloadable software application to the Web for single-unit establishments was done in an effort to reduce reporting burden and increase electronic response rates.

Debriefings are planned with three different groups of respondents. The first group contains respondents who successfully reported electronically in 2010. The second group includes respondents that attempted to respond electronically for 2010 but reported their final data on paper. And the final group is of respondents that reported electronically in 2009 but chose to report on paper in 2010. The goal of collecting information from the last two groups of respondents is to identify reasons why they reported electronically in the past, but ultimately responded via paper in 2010.

During May and June of 2011, analysts in the Manufacturing and Construction Division, Service Sector Statistics Division, and Economic Planning and Coordination Division will conduct telephone debriefings with single-unit establishments from the 2010 ASM and the 2010 Report of Organization that reported electronically, that logged into the electronic system but reported on paper, and that reported electronically in 2009 but reported on paper in 2010. Beginning with respondents who reported most recently, and working backwards in time, cases will be selected from each of the 3 groups in a manner that attempts to ensure broad coverage across the major trade areas. Contact attempts will continue using this selection strategy until 60 telephone debriefings are obtained for each group, for a total of 180 respondent debriefings.

Enclosed is a draft of the debriefing questions. 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 or special sworn employees involved in the research project. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

We estimate the length of these telephone interviews will average 10 minutes. Thus, the total estimated burden for this research is 30 hours (180 x .16).

The contact person for questions regarding data collection or other aspects of this research is:

Andrew Hennessy

Instrument Design and Metadata Branch

Economic Planning and Coordination Division

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 736-3392

Andrew.S.Hennessy@census.gov