Memo

Generic Information Collection Request (ICR): 2020 CBAMS Focus Groups

Request: The U.S. Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the Generic Clearance for Internet Nonprobability Panel Pretesting (OMB Control Number 0607-0978). The Census Bureau’s Communications Research and Analytics Team (CRAT) of the Integrated Partnership and Communications (IPC) program plans to conduct focus groups as part of the 2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study (2020 CBAMS). These focus groups are designed to understand mindsets that relate to census participation across demographic subgroups. The 2020 CBAMS focus groups cover a range of topics related to respondents’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and motivators and barriers related to the 2020 Census. Results will drive the creative development for the 2020 Integrated Communications Campaign. In this current submission, we are seeking approval to conduct this qualitative information collection.

Purpose: The results of 2020 CBAMS focus groups will serve as inputs for the creative platform, or unifying idea, that reaches across all communications campaign elements. Results will also offer insights into messages that could be developed for different sociodemographic subgroups. More specifically, these focus groups will place emphasis on giving a voice to hard-to-count (HTC) audiences and audiences that may be underrepresented in the 2020 CBAMS survey that complements these focus groups.

Populations of Interest: Results will inform 2020 Census Integrated Communications Campaign planning. Therefore, we are interested in data collected¹ from housing units across the United States. More specifically, focus groups will prioritize populations with HTC characteristics and populations we suspect will not have a large enough sample in the CBAMS survey to develop accurate findings.

Focus groups will be held in English and three non-English languages – Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. English focus groups will include audiences we expect to be respond at low rates and, thus, may be underrepresented in the 2020 CBAMS Survey include residents in rural areas, those with low internet proficiency, young and mobile single people, and people with low literacy in the languages offered by the survey (i.e., English and Spanish). Focus groups will also gather insight from some minority populations, such as American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) groups, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) populations, that are predicted not to have enough responders from which to draw inferences via the 2020 CBAMS Survey.

To identify priority non-English speaking audiences for 2020 CBAMS focus groups, we used the same criteria for identifying the languages to be studied as the 2020 Census Language Assistance Guides. The guidance includes the ranking of housing units with no person age 14 or older who speaks English “very well.” The 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates indicate that nearly four-in-five (79.0 percent) people in the United States speak only English at home. Based on the 2015 5-year estimates, the languages that have the largest populations of respondents who speak English less than “very well” are Spanish (13.0 percent), Chinese (1.0 percent), and Vietnamese (0.5 percent).

Forty-two focus groups will be conducted as described in Tables 1 and 2:

Table 1. Focus Groups of English Speakers

Description	Focus Groups
Rural	2 focus groups
Low internet proficiency (no or limited internet proficiency) with mixed race and ethnicity	4 focus groups
Young and mobile with mixed race/ethnicity	2 focus groups
Black or African American HTC-focused	4 focus groups
American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN)	6 focus groups (2 in Alaska and 4 in the continental U.S.)
Middle Eastern or North African (MENA)	4 focus groups (likely separated by gender)
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI)	4 focus groups
Note: Focus groups include a mix of ages, genders, and education levels.

Table 2. Focus Groups of Non-English Speakers

Description	Focus Groups
Spanish, U.S. mainland (include a mix of country of origin)	4 focus groups
Spanish, Puerto Rico (island residents, not those living within the continental U.S.)	4 focus groups
Chinese	4 focus groups
Vietnamese	4 focus groups
Note: Focus groups include a mix of ages, genders, and education levels.

Focus groups will be conducted in 14 proposed locations. These locations were selected in collaboration with Census Bureau subject matter experts (SMEs) and multicultural partner advertising agencies that are part of the contractor team in order to provide sufficient concentration of the audience targeted for particular focus groups. They also represent geographic diversity across the country. Other considered factors include rural representation, a mix of country-of-origin in particular locations, and minimizing travel costs for the government. The proposed locations are identified in Table 3.

Table 3. Proposed Focus Group Locations

Location	Audiences (Groups)
Albuquerque, NM	AIAN (2 groups), low internet proficiency (2 groups)
Anchorage, AK	AIAN (2 groups)
Bristol, TN	Rural (2 groups)
Cayey, PR1	Puerto Rican residents (2 groups)
Chicago, IL	Young and mobile singles (2 groups)
Detroit, MI	MENA (2 groups), Black/African American (2 groups)
Honolulu, HI	NHPI (2 groups)
Houston, TX	Vietnamese language (2 groups), Spanish language (2 groups, primarily Mexican and Central Am.)
Los Angeles, CA	NHPI (2 groups), Chinese language (2 groups), MENA (2 groups), Spanish language (1 group, primarily urban Mexican and Central American)
Memphis, TN	Low internet proficiency (2 groups)
Montgomery, AL	Black/African American (2 groups)
New York, NY	Spanish language (1 group, primarily Caribbean and South American focused), Vietnamese language (2 groups), Chinese language (2 groups)
Rapid City, SD	AIAN (2 groups)
San Juan, PR2	Puerto Rican residents (2 groups)

Timeline: Tentative fielding dates are February 20 through April 13, 2018.

Method: Recruiting for focus groups can be challenging. Potential participants must be willing to contribute to the research and available at the focus group location on a specific night. In addition, to be eligible for any 2020 CBAMS focus group, participants must meet four criteria. First, they must meet the characteristic of the focus group (e.g., rural residency, low internet proficiency, or specific racial or ethnic group). Second, they must meet quotas for characteristics such as gender, age, and education to ensure that there is a mix of people within each focus group. Third, participants will be screened to be at risk for nonresponse, and eligibility will be contingent upon risk for nonresponse (see screener and eligibility criteria enclosed as Appendices A and B for more information). Finally, participants must have not participated in any other focus group session in the past three months.

Each focus group will be about 90 minutes long. Upon arrival at the facility, participants will receive a focus group information sheet and informed consent form (enclosed as Appendix E). A member of the research team will be available to answer any questions prior to the start of the discussion. Discussion will be semistructured and aligned with a discussion guide. With guidance from the contractor general research, multicultural specialist agencies, and Census Bureau SMEs, we have developed a discussion guide for the focus groups that covers key topics and identifies areas to probe for further information. Discussions will be facilitated by professionally trained moderators with demonstrated expertise in focus group facilitation, as well as working with specific audience groups and languages.

The topics for discussion are as follows:

• Section A: Introduction and Icebreaker (10 min.)

• Section B: Community Definitions (15 min.)

• Section C: Familiarity and Experience with the Census (15 min.)

• Section D: Motivators and Barriers (30 min.)

• Section E: 2020 Census Process (15 min.)

• Section F: Conclusion (5 min.)

The complete discussion guide and screenshots for group activities are enclosed (see Appendices C and D respectively). Multicultural advertising partners will translate the moderator’s guide into Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese before submitting it for review by the Census Bureau’s Decennial Census Management Division and the Center for Survey Methodology.

Incentives: We are requesting that OMB authorize the Census Bureau to approve an incentive amount of $75 to match the OMB standards for focus group incentives.

Enclosures: The following are enclosed:

• Appendix A: Screening questionnaire

• Appendix B: Screening quota tables by audience

• Appendix C: Focus group discussion guide

• Appendix D: Focus group activities

• Appendix E: Consent form

Length of Interview: Focus groups will last approximately 90 minutes. For each group, we will seat six to eight participants. Thus, the estimated maximum total respondent burden for this study is 1,344 hours, inclusive of screening and informed consent activities.

BURDEN HOUR COMPUTATION

Table 4. Number of respondents, estimated participation time in minutes, and total burden time in hours for $75 incentive amount

Respondent Type	No. of Respondents	Participation Time per Respondent (minutes)	Total Burden Time (hours)
Screened Potential Participants
Screening	5,040	10	840
Focus Group Participants
Maximum Focus Group Participants	336	90	504
Total Burden Hours (Includes Screened Participants and Focus Group Participants)			1,344

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

Monica Vines

Researcher

Center for New Media and Promotion (CNMP)

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-8813

monica.j.vines@census.gov

References:

American Community Survey (2016). Language Spoken at Home by Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Older. Table B16001. U.S. Census Bureau

1 Data collected from the focus groups will not be from a representative sample.

2The Census Bureau is committed to conducting research in Puerto Rico. As the situation in Puerto Rico is evolving, we will proceed toward a spring 2018 fielding with Puerto Rico focus groups. However, given Hurricane Maria, the Census Bureau may delay fielding the Puerto Rican focus groups until summer 2018. In this case, a separate findings report would be developed for Puerto Rican focus groups, while other focus groups would proceed as planned. Summer 2018 fielding would still allow insights from Puerto Rican focus groups to be incorporated into the creative brief workshop planned for FY19. We will decide whether to field Puerto Rican focus groups in spring or summer on January 5, 2018 and proceed or not with recruiting and facility booking.

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