Memo

The purpose of this letter is to request additional burden hours for the 2017 Economic Census New Question Testing research which was approved on July 18, 2016 under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). On July 25, 2016, we received additional new questions from key stakeholders and data users. We will be conducting cognitive interviews to test this additional proposed new content.

These additional questions include business cooperatives, professional services, distance learning, clinical performance and electronic health records, and health insurance payments and revenue.

As with the previously approved request, the goals of this research are:

• to see if respondents can understand and answer these questions correctly;

• what, if any, changes are necessary to the proposed wording.

From September through October 2016, we plan to conduct up to 70 additional cognitive interviews with respondents from companies that participated in the 2012 Economic Census. Because the questions are industry-specific and will not be asked of all respondents during the Census, each interview will only involve 2-4 questions. The attached protocol lists the additional questions and indicates the industries for which these questions will be asked and tested. Because these interviews will cover a small number of questions, we still anticipate conducting the majority of the interviews over the phone. We may supplement the telephone interviews with in-person interviews with respondents from companies in the Washington, D.C. area.

Researchers from the Data Collection Methodology and Research Branch will conduct these interviews over the phone. Staff from other areas in the Economic Directorate will help identify companies to contact, assemble recruiting lists, and may participate in the interviews, as they are able. We will recruit large companies from the specific industries of which the proposed questions will be asked. We want to meet with participants who completed the 2012 Economic Census and will be most likely to fill out the 2017 Economic Census. After recruited, we will give participants a follow-up reminder (phone, email, or fax) of their appointments.

Interviews may be audio-recorded, with the participants' permission, to facilitate accurate summarization of the results. We also 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 scheduled, and each recruiting call will last an average of five minutes. Thus, the total estimated additional burden for this set of interviews is approximately 65 hours ((70 companies X 30 minutes) + (350 companies X 5 minutes)).

Enclosed are a copy of the additional questions and a draft of the cognitive interview protocol for the questions.

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

Enclosures

cc:
Willaim Bostic          (ADEP) with enclosures

Ian Thomas (EWD) “ “

Andrew Baer (EWD) “ “

Julius Smith (EWD) “ “

Cynthia Hollingsworth (EWD) “ “

Theresa Riddle (EMD) “ “

Kevin Deardorff (EWD) “ “

Suzanne Connard (EWD) “ “

William Davie (ESMD) “ “

Carol Caldwell (ESMD) “           ”

Carma Hogue (ESMD) “ “

Diane Willimack (ESMD) “ “

Amy Anderson Riemer (ESMD) “