2020 Commission Citizen Survey

July 1998
For Year 2020 Commission
Office of Financial Management (OFM) SESRC Data Report # 98-20

Year 2020 Commission Citizen Survey

 

DATA REPORT
1998

 

Survey Conducted by:

Social and Economic Sciences Research Center
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-4014
(509) 335-1511

 

For:

Year 2020 Commission
Office of Financial Management (OFM)
Insurance Building, P.O. Box 43113
Olympia, WA 98504-3113

 

John Tarnai, Principal Investigator

 

Report Prepared by:
Marion Landry, Study Director

Data Book #98-20 (YR20) of the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center

 

SESRC Project Profile

Title:

Year 2020 Commission Citizen Survey

   

Abstract:

This is a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview survey designed to assess the attitudes and opinions of Washington state residents regarding higher education within the state. A total of 404 household interviews were completed. Principal Investigator, John Tarnai; Project Director, Marion Landry.

   

Objectives:

The objectives of the study were to assess the attitudes and opinions of Washington state residents regarding higher education within the state.

   

Methods:

Completed telephone interviews with 404 Washington State residents from an RDD sample of Washington state telephone numbers. Each case received a minimum of 10 call attempts.

   

Results:

Calls were attempted to a total of 1627 residences. Of these, 404 completed interviews, another 18 were determined ineligible because they were not households or no one in the household was over 18 years of age.

   

Timeframe:

June 15, 1998 through July 28, 1998

   

Contract with

Office of Financial Management (OFM)
Insurance Building, P.O. Box 43113
Olympia, WA 98504-3113

   

Contract Number:

OFM IAA No. 1050-98

Funding Source:

Office of Financial Management (OFM)

Contract Amount:

$21,381.00

   

Principal Investigator:

John Tarnai, Ph.D.

Study Director:

Marion Landry, M.A.

   

SESRC Acronym:

YR20

SESRC Number:

0316

Data Book Number:

98-20

WSU OGRD Number:

NA

   

Deliverables:

Data reports, survey, data set, SAS program.

Project Contributors

All of the work conducted at the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center is a result of a cooperative effort made by a team of dedicated research professionals. While it is impossible to identify the contributions provided by each member of this research team, the following list does identify the major contributors. The research in this report could not have been conducted were it not for the effort of the coders, data-entry personnel, and administrative support of the staff at SESRC.

Principal Investigators

 
   

John Tarnai, Ph.D.

Director

   

Contract Management

 
   

Don Dillman, Ph.D.

Deputy Director of Research & Development

Rita Koontz

Administrative Services Manager

Tammy Small

Head Secretary

Sandy Johnson

Fiscal Specialist

Julie Nielsen

Fiscal Specialist

   

Project Management

 
   

Danna Moore, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator / Research Coordinator

Dretha Phillips, Ph.D.

Research Associate

Rosie Pavlov, M.A.

Study Director

Marion Landry, M.A.

Study Director

Arrick Jackson, B.S.

Research Assistant

   

Data Management/Analysis

 
   

Rodney K. Baxter, Ph.D.

Data Manager / Analyst

Zoltan Porga

Programmer / Analyst

Dan Vakoch, M.S.

Data Analyst

Lisa Carley, M.A.

Data Analyst

Shawn Scamahorn

Data Analyst

David Schultz

Network Manager / CATI Programmer

Lance Krull

Data Analysts

Brian Adams

CATI Programmer

   

Data Collection

 
   

Kent Miller, M.A.

Data Collection Unit Manager / Survey Supervisor

Jolyn Persons

Data Collection Unit Manager / Survey Supervisor

Thom Allen, B.A.

Data Collection Unit Manager / Survey Supervisor

Keeley Duft

Survey Supervisor

Anita Neill

Survey Supervisor

Sarah Frost

Survey Supervisor

Mary Kate Watson

Survey Supervisor

Carmen Lugo-Curry

Survey Supervisor

I. Survey Administration

BACKGROUND

The Social and Economic Sciences Research Center ( SESRC) was contracted by the Year 2020 Commission to design and implement a statewide telephone survey about post-secondary education needs of Washington state households.

SURVEY OBJECTIVES

1. Assess the attitudes and opinions of Washington state residents regarding higher education.

SAMPLE

The population for the Year 2020 Commission survey consists of all households located within the geographic boundaries of Washington State. A random digit dialing (RDD) approach was used to obtain the sample. This is the most common approach used for telephone interviews because it has the most complete coverage of public populations. The only households that are excluded by an RDD approach are households without telephones. This non-coverage error is quite small. Statewide, the percent of households without telephones is less than four percent, although there are a few counties with higher rates of non-telephone households.

The RDD sampling frame was prepared by the Genesys Sampling company. Telephone numbers are generated randomly using a computer, after determining all the working telephone exchanges and working blocks within the state. All possible combinations of telephone numbers within these exchanges and blocks are determined, and the sample is drawn from this sample frame.

The assumptions used to estimate the starting sample size of telephone numbers in ordering the sample were:

46% rate of non-working telephone numbers
50% rate of households that are contactable during the survey period
50% response rate

For the statewide sample, a total of 2,000 telephone numbers were ordered from the Genesys Sampling company. A total of 373 non-working and business numbers were purged from the sample. The sample consisted of 1,627 numbers which were released for interviewing in replicates of 100.

PROCEDURES

Questionnaire Design. The original survey was designed by the Year 2020 Commission. After an initial review by SESRC staff members, several changes were made to the survey . Primarily the changes were to re-write the questions in a standard telephone interviewing format used by SESRC. After the changes were made the questionnaire was time tested. It was determined that the questionnaire was too long, approximately 28 minutes to complete. Several questions were removed from the questionnaire to reduce the calling time. After the questionnaire was finalized it was programmed into the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing system, Info Zero Un.

Pre-test of Questionnaire. An internal pretest was conducted for the Year 2020 Commission survey. A total of twelve internal interviews were conducted with interviewers and staff. Through these pretest interviews it was determined that the length of the interview was too long, approximately 25 minutes. SESRC and the Commission staff jointly determined which questions to eliminate for the survey. After several editing session the final questionnaire was developed and was time tested at 21 minutes.

Interviewer Training. Interviewers selected to work on this project were given approximately two hours of training, including background information, purpose of the study, questions and content of this study. This training was conducted on June 28, 1998. In addition, each interviewer spent about half an hour reviewing the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview program for this study. A second training was held on June 30, 1998 for two hours in order to increase the total number of interviewers available to call on the project. A total of 38 interviewers were trained on this project.

 

Refusal Conversion. SESRC attempted refusal conversions on all of the call records terminated as R1, R2 and RP during the first day of calling. One attempt was made on each of these call records.

 

RESPONSE

Response rate statistics for the survey are presented in Table 1. Attempts were made to contact a total of 400 households. A household was ineligible for participation in the survey if there was no one 18 years of age or older in the household.

 

Table 1. Disposition Report for All Cases

 

Sample Disposition

YR20

CM: Completed Interview

404

PC: Partial complete

14

PB: Partial complete

2

R1: Refusal, hang up

134

R2: Soft refusal

31

R3: Hostile refusal

98

RN: Refusal for respondent not available

12

RP: Refusal by other person

14

CB: Specific callback

18

GB: General callback

7

BZ: Busy signal

14

NA: No answer

132

AM: Answering Machine

107

DF: Deaf respondent

5

HC: Handicapped respondent

3

LG: Language problem

26

IE: Ineligible household situation/under 18

18

BG: Business or Govt

196

DS: Disconnected

283

ED: Electronic device

79

OT: Other

30

PN: Purged nonworking numbers

373

 

Table 2 presents a summary of the sample disposition variables needed to calculate response rates for the survey. Several different response rates are calculated and presented in this table. The reason for this is that different organizations have varying needs for presenting information and some response rates are more appropriate than others. In addition, some response rate calculations use estimates of ineligible households to calculate final response rates. For example The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) has proposed adjusting response rates to reflect the obtained proportion of ineligible households.

The first raw response rate (RR1) is the ratio of the number of completed interviews to the total number of completed, partially completed and refused interviews. The raw response rate for this study is (404/709) 56.98 %.

 

The second raw response rate (RR2) takes into account those households that were never reached during the survey period, by including them in the denominator of the ratio. This response rate is (404/697) 57.95 %.

 

The final two response rates presented provide adjustments for the estimated proportion of ineligible households. The first adjusted response rate (RR3) is the ratio of the number of completed interviews to the total number of eligible respondents. For this study, 404 interviews were completed. This calculation adjusts for respondents that refuse to participate and were not able to be reached during the data collection period. When the ratio of completed interviews to the eligible cases is calculated in Table 2, the adjusted response rate is (404/1021) 39.577%. This adjusted response rate only adjusts for the proportion of ineligible households, but does not include noncontactable households in the denominator.

The second adjusted response rate (RR4) adds the noncontactable households to the denominator of the ratio. For this study the adjusted response rate is (404/939) 43.01 %. This response rate is probably the most representative of the actual outcome of the survey.

 

Table 2. Response Rate Calculations Table

Sample disposition summary

YR20

CM (CM)

404

RF1 (PB, PC)

16

RF2 (R1, R2, R3, RN, RP)

289

NA1 (CB, GB, BZ, AM, DF, HC, LG)

180

NA2 (NA)

132

IEH (IE)

18

IEO (BG, DS, ED, OT, PN)

931

Total

1970

   

Response Rate Calculations

 
   

ADJ1=%INELIGIBLE

4.11% (IEH)/(CM+RF1+IEH)

ADJ2=%OUT OF SAMPLE

47.26% IEO/TOTAL

   

RR1

56.98% CM/CM+RF1+RF2

RR2

57.95% CM/CM+RF1+(1-ADJ1)*RF2

RR3

39.57% CM/(CM+RF1+ RF2 +NA1+NA2)

RR4

43.01% CM/(CM+RF1+(1-ADJ1)*(RF2+NA1)+(1-ADJ2)*NA2)