Experimentation and Evaluation Plans for the 2010 Census Interim Report (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Initial Views on 2010 Census Experiments
2 Initial Views on 2010 Census Experiments
Pages 17-36
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From page 17... ...
We understand that it will not be possible for the Census Bureau to produce a single proposal for the general design of the next census when it is time to select the experiments and evaluations for the current census, but it should be possible to produce a relatively small number of leading alternative designs that are under consideration. To help define possible designs, fundamental questions like the following might be asked: • Could the telephone or the Internet be used more broadly as an alternative to mailing back census questionnaires for data collection?
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From page 18... ...
. While some of these issues are extremely new, some, for example questionnaire design, are topics for which the Census Bureau has a history of relevant research.
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From page 19... ...
Finally, as we discuss below, the possible impact of the different residence concepts used by the census and the ACS is a major concern that can and should be assessed as part of the 2010 CPEX. 2 Recall that the Census Bureau typically refers to a census experiment as a study involving field data collection -- typically carried out simultaneously with the decennial census itself -- in which alternatives to census processes currently in use are assessed for a subset of the population.
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From page 20... ...
In the decennial census context, the Internet provides important advantages, including alternate ways of representing residence rules, increased facility for the presentation of questionnaires in foreign languages, real-time editing, and immediate transmission of data, which has important benefits for minimizing the overlap of census data collection operations. With respect to the representation of residence concepts, an Internet-based questionnaire could make it easier to display (and link to)
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From page 21... ...
RECOMMENDATION 1: The Census Bureau should include, in the 2010 census, a test of Internet data collection as an alternative means of enumeration. Such a test should investigate means of facilitating Internet response and should measure the impact on data quality, the expeditiousness of response, and the impact on the use of foreign language forms.
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From page 22... ...
• as an alternative to item and unit imputation: in the situations in which the Census Bureau uses either item or unit imputation (see National Research Council, 2004a, for a discussion of when unit imputation was used in the 2000 census) , information from administrative records could be used as input to the imputation.
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From page 23... ...
However, the Census Bureau has made substantial progress on administrative records since then. For example, E-StARS8, the Census Bureau's name for a merged and unduplicated list of individuals from several administrative lists, was used to explain 85 percent of the discrepancies between the Maryland Food Stamp Registry recipients and estimates from the Census Supplementary Survey in 2001 (the pilot American Community Survey)
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From page 24... ...
(It should be noted that the Census Bureau has previously considered targeting for use with block canvassing, but to this point it has rejected this idea.) However, if properly planned and implemented, targeting should increase overall census data accuracy and at the same time reduce costs.
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From page 25... ...
that assesses the utility of administrative records for assistance in specific census component processes -- for example, for improvement of the Master Address File, for nonresponse follow-up, for assessment of duplicate status, and for coverage improvement. In addition, either as an experiment or through evaluations, the Census Bureau should collect sufficient data to support assessment of the degree to which targeting various census processes, using administrative records, could reduce census costs or improve census quality.
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From page 26... ...
. Over the past 20 years, the Census Bureau has devoted considerable research to testing various approaches to the design of questions on race and ethnicity, trying alternative question wordings, formatting, and sequencing to elicit quality information (see, e.g., Rodriguez, 1994; McKay and de la Puente, 1995; de la Puente and McKay, 1995)
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From page 27... ...
The Census Bureau has developed sets of residence rules to 9 It should be noted that this specific question format runs counter to a provision included in the fiscal year 2005 omnibus appropriations bill (and that was made binding on subsequent years) , which requires the Bureau to include a "some other race" option.
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From page 28... ...
A major reason for the importance of collection of "any residence elsewhere" information on a test basis for the general population is to help resolve a major outstanding concern about the transition from the traditional census long form to the ongoing American Community Survey. While the decennial census uses a "usual residence" concept, the ACS uses something closer to a "current residence" rule; specifically, residence in the ACS is defined using a "two-month rule" relative to the time of interview (see National Research Council, 2006:Box 8-2 and Sec.
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From page 29... ...
This work could build on alternative questionnaire presentations that the Census Bureau tested on a limited basis in its 2005 National Census Test and an ad hoc test in 2006. To be clear -- and as is noted elsewhere in this report -- National Research Council (2006)
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From page 30... ...
Finally, item G.1 on the Census Bureau's list of research topics proposes administering the 2000 census questionnaire to a group of 2010 census respondents so that some insight can be drawn about the effectiveness of the complete bundle of changes between the 2010 and 2000 forms. This proposal to use the prior census questionnaire as a control group treatment has not always been carried out in past alternative questionnaire experiments.
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From page 31... ...
. RECOMMENDATION 3: The Census Bureau should include one or more alternate questionnaire experiments during the 2010 census to examine: • the representation of questions on race and ethnicity on the census questionnaire, particularly asking about race and Hispanic origin as a single question; • the representation of residence rules and concepts on the census questionnaire; and • the usefulness of including new or improved questions or other information on the questionnaire with regard to (1)
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From page 32... ...
This suggestion is related to items C.8, C.7, F.1, and F.2 on the Census Bureau's list of issues.) Another concern stems from the fact that the coverage follow-up interview uses question wording similar to that on the census questionnaire, and there is thus a good chance of generating the same response as was initially received in the case of interviews resulting from coverage probes or from the identification of potential duplicates.
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From page 33... ...
Certainly some of this can be attributed to the fact that the primary function of a census or a census test is an opportunity to assess the full census operation with the embedded experiments having to make do with various limitations. However, it is important for the Census Bureau to improve its application of experimental design techniques for its experiments, both to reduce the costs of the experimentation and to increase the information contained in the results.
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From page 34... ...
Census Bureau; see also National Research Council (2006:Box 6-3)
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From page 35... ...
Figure 2-1 First page (Person 1) , draft 2008 dress rehearsal questionnaire.
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From page 36... ...
Figure 2-2 Person 2 panel, draft 2008 dress rehearsal questionnaire. SOURCE: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2007/questionnaire_4_24_07.pdf.
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