Non-Substantive Change Request (July 2013 Rotational Question Sets & Other Revisions)

The U.S. Census Bureau requests permission to make non-substantive changes to the questionnaire under the clearance for the Federal Statistical System Public Opinion Survey (OMB number 0607-0969). The objective of this research is to gather data on public understanding of and trust in Federal Statistical Agencies and federal statistics. These public opinion data will enable the Census Bureau to better understand public perceptions, which will provide guidance for communicating with the public and for future planning of data collection that reflects a good understanding of public perceptions and concerns.

As a reminder, from February 2012 through September 2013, the Census Bureau will add 25 questions nightly onto an ongoing data collection by the Gallup Daily Tracking Survey. Approximately nineteen of the 25 questions are core questions and approximately 6 are available for rotation. Core questions focus on awareness of and attitudes towards federal statistics and federal statistical agencies. Up to 20 times during the data collection, up to 6 questions may be rotated in the survey. OMB and Census have agreed that these rotating questions constitute non-substantive changes to this submission. Attached to this letter is the request to make these changes through a single tracking document. This tracking document contains a complete history of all questions asked and the date that each question was or is planned to be asked.

The first change is dropping three of the “core” questions which have been found to be least useful or predictive in the time series analysis and modeling thus far in favor of replacing them with items that measure other aspects of trust, including intrusiveness, privacy and timeliness. These measures will be in place for the remainder of the current data collection.

The second change is for the next rotation in series, which will collect data on respondents’ willingness to bring their own devices (BYOD) to work in a program like the one the 2020 Census is exploring. As the government shifts to this BYOD paradigm, we believe it is critically important to understand how the population feels about this and how trust may impact attitudes towards a BYOD policy.

We believe that lessons learned within the context of the Census Bureau questions will also provide strategic information to the other participating agencies on implementing BYOD programs. We are requesting to field the changes to the time series questions on July 22 and the new rotation questions beginning August 6 until a new request is made.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and study design is:

Jennifer Hunter Childs

Center for Survey Measurement

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

202-603-4827

jennifer.hunter.childs@census.gov