2012 Economic Census Focus Groups - Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional survey work under the generic clearance for Data User Evaluation Surveys (OMB number 0607-0760).

The Census Bureau’s 2012 Economic Census Publicity and Outreach team plans to conduct a series of focus groups to explore opinions, perceptions and attitudes of highly knowledgeable and involved economic data users to gain insights about their awareness and usage of data offerings from the Census Bureau. They will focus on “Power Users” who have strong experience with economic statistics from the Census Bureau, particularly Economic Census data. We will harness learning from these focus groups to guide development of messaging, outreach and marketing programs, websites, data product offerings and improvements for data dissemination and access.

Between April and August 2013, our contractor WB&A (company profile attached) will conduct up to 20 sessions with a range of Data User targets including “Power Users” – public and private sector, business professionals, academics, and other stakeholders around the country. Our contractor, WB&A have special sworn status to conduct and collect the data from these focus groups. These may be held as traditional “behind the glass” focus groups or as conference room roundtables. We will strive to achieve a well-rounded mix of participants and will recruit for groups from lists provided by state and regional contacts and supplemented by the focus group facilities. We anticipate the recruitment effort to take 5 minutes per recruitment questionnaire. We plan on calling 960 (48 for each focus group x 20 focus groups divided into 2 rounds) potential focus group participants for a total of 80 burden hours. We will hold groups in up to six cities to gain insights from different regions around the country (e.g. Northeast, Midwest, South, etc.). We anticipate two rounds of groups (approximately 10 groups per round), with a break between rounds, to assess preliminary findings and incorporate any refinements to the focus group moderators guide between Rounds 1 and 2.

The 2012 Economic Census Publicity and Outreach team have reviewed and internally tested the moderators guide for these discussions for content appropriateness. Each focus group or roundtable discussion will include 8 - 10 participants. We estimate that each focus group or roundtable session will last 2 hours each for a total respondent burden of 400 hours.

For the focus group sessions, we plan to maximize attendance for the session by compensating attendees for their time. Based upon our experience and that of our contractor, we believe that in select geographic areas, the standard $75 reimbursement may not be sufficient for effective recruitment.  Thus, we request a value as high as $150 to attract a diverse panel of select participants.

For further information about this study, please contact Charles Brady at 301-763-6707 or charles.f.brady@census.gov.