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questionnaire. Included in this figure is 5% of agencies that Surveying Respondents Who Cannot Read
used English, Spanish, and a third language, either Vietnamese
(in Orange County and Santa Clara County, California) or Although some respondents can complete a questionnaire
Polish (in Chicago). The remaining 57% of the questionnaires in Spanish (or another language) but not English, another
used English only. problem that arises involves riders who are not able to read
in any language. AATA (Ann Arbor, Michigan) reported
For the most part, a large majority of riders complete sur- that some of its riders cannot read. Although survey
veys in English. For surveys in which transit agencies workers assist these riders, AATA staff believes that this
reported the breakdown of returned surveys by language, portion of AATA's customer base is underrepresented in
one-half reported that fewer than 5% of respondents chose the survey.
the Spanish option. The use of Spanish questionnaires can be
quite high in certain cities, however: Los Angeles (36%), Another issue that arises concerns persons with visual
Santa Monica (19%), Chicago (8% in one survey, 17% in impairments. TriMet provides Braille cards that ask the per-
another survey), and San Jose (16%) (Table 16). Use of the son to call a phone number and be interviewed on the phone.
Vietnamese and Polish languages options was 0.2% or less. TriMet also provides large-font surveys and, time permitting,
surveyors administer surveys verbally on-board.
The layout of multilanguage questionnaires takes essen-
tially two approaches. One approach is to reproduce the same
questionnaire in both (or all three) languages. The alterna- PRETESTING QUESTIONNAIRE
tives may be presented side-by-side on one page, on the front
and back of the same sheet of paper, or by using separate Pretesting is a standardized step in questionnaire develop-
sheets of paper. The specific choice depends largely on the ment. The objective is to determine how well the question-
length of the questionnaire. naire is working before commencing the fieldwork and to
make any needed changes for clarity of questions, naviga-
The advantage to this approach is a cleaner visual appear- tion, etc.
ance for each language. The disadvantage is that respondents
may overlook the version of the survey in their preferred lan- Surveys can be pretested in the field using actual survey
guage in the case of front-and-back printing. Some agencies procedures. Surveys can also be pretested using a conve-
have observed that some passengers, if they look at the nience sample such as nearby office workers who use tran-
"wrong" side of the questionnaire first, simply set it aside sit, but are not familiar with the purposes and details of the
rather than flipping it over. In situations where separate survey. In either case, respondents are asked to complete the
sheets of paper are used for different languages, survey survey as they would in the fieldwork phase. If possible, it is
workers need to determine which version to give riders. This useful to ask for verbal feedback from respondents on any
need can introduce awkwardness or, at minimum, creates an questions that are unclear. Finished questionnaires can be
additional step in the distribution of questionnaires. checked for completeness, consistency, and any apparent
accuracy problems.
The alternative approach is to include Spanish text immedi-
ately after the English text. The O&D TARC questionnaire in Pretesting is critical for new surveys and complex ques-
Appendix C illustrates this approach, which avoids the problems tions or question sequences. Pretesting may not be necessary
mentioned above and may reduce space requirements. How- if essentially the same questionnaire is used from a previous
ever, it also appears more cluttered, which could possibly affect survey. For surveys reported by transit agencies, pretesting
response rates, item nonresponse, and/or accuracy of answers. was conducted in 45% of the cases.
