Memo

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting respondent debriefings on the Web instrument for the 2015 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) for businesses that operate in a single location. The ASM collects information about businesses and the goods that they produce. This research will help assess the performance of the redesigned Web instrument.

From February through May 2016, we plan to conduct thirty telephone debriefings with respondents to the 2015 ASM. For the 2015 survey year, the Web instrument for the ASM will employ a response-driven instrument that incorporates skip patterns that show respondents only the questions that they need to answer. Some of the content was also re-ordered.

These debriefings are a follow-up to two previous rounds of usability testing (Generic Clearance request from September, 2014), which revealed that respondents liked the new design of the instrument and that the changes to the questions were not problematic. The debriefings will follow-up with respondents after data collection to assess the instrument further and determine any further changes that might need to be made to the response-driven instrument. The debriefings will address the following questions:

• How did the response-driven design perform?

• Were there any navigation problems through the questionnaire because of the response-driven design?

• How did respondents find filling out the questionnaire?

• Were there any problematic features or questions?

Researchers from the Data Collection Methodology and Research Branch (DCMRB) will conduct these telephone interviews with respondents at times that are convenient to them. Staff from other areas in the Economic Directorate may participate as observers and listen into the interviews, as they are able.

DCMRB staff will recruit small manufacturing companies that responded to the 2015 ASM, as soon after submission as possible. The interviews will either be conducted upon recruiting them or scheduled for a time that is more convenient for the respondent. If the respondent would prefer to schedule the interview for a later time, we will give participants a follow-up reminder of their appointments by fax or email. We will inform participants that their response is voluntary, the information they provide is confidential, and that only employees involved in the research project will see that information. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

The length of the interviews is expected to average 30 minutes. We expect to make up to five recruiting calls for every interview conducted, and each recruiting call will last an average of five minutes. Thus, the total estimated burden for this set of interviews is approximately 27.5 hours ((30 companies X 30 minutes) + (150 companies X 5 minutes)).

Enclosed is a copy of the debriefing questions and a mock-up of the 2015 Web instrument.

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

Jennifer Beck

Data Collection and Methodology Research Branch

Economic and Statistical Methods Division

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1736

Jennifer.L.Beck@census.gov

Sincerely yours,

Jenny Hunter Childs

Center for Survey Measurement

Enclosures

cc:
Willaim Bostic          (ADEP) with enclosures

Nick Orsini (ADEP) “

Julius Smith (EWD ) “

Kevin Deardorff (EWD ) “

Michelle Karlsson (EMD) “

Jim Jamski (EMD) “

Amy Newman Smith (ESMD) “

Carol Caldwell (ESMD)     ”

Carma Hogue (ESMD) “
Diane Willimack            (ESMD) ”
Alfred Tuttle   (ESMD) ”

Paul Beatty (ADRM) “

Mary Davis (CSM) “