Census of Governments - Retirement Component Pretesting Plan

This is an update to a request to conduct pretesting on the Census of Governments – Retirement Component that was approved under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725) on August 22, 2011, and a request for additional burden hours.

Our original request was for 40 burden hours. After conducting two rounds of interviews, we have found the need to make additional revisions to the questionnaires and conduct extra interviews to evaluate the proposed changes. The forms also have undergone layout changes. Attached are the revised questionnaire and the protocol we will use to evaluate those revisions.

We have conducted 7 interviews thus far, and therefore, have 13 remaining from our original request. We would like to request approval to conduct an additional 15 interviews.

A second round of cognitive interviews will be conducted in Austin, Texas during the week of January 23, 2012. We will also be conducting additional interviews in the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and phone calls with other governments throughout the U.S. to further assess the revised questions.

Subject area specialists from the Census Bureau will accompany the researcher 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.

We will record the interviews with the participants’ permission in order to aid researchers in accurately reporting findings and recommendations. Before beginning the interviews, we will inform participants that their response is voluntary. We also will inform the participants that the information they provide is confidential. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

We estimate that it will be necessary to interview only one participant at each government. We estimate the length of the interviews will average 2 hours. Therefore, the maximum estimated burden for this submission is 30 hours.

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

Jennifer Beck

Response Improvement Research Staff

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1736

jennifer.l.beck@census.gov