Annual/Termination Reports:

[04/25/2008]

Report Information

Participants

Virginia Lesser (Chair: Oregon) lesser@stat.orst.edu;
John Allen (Utah State) johna@ext.usu.edu;
Tom Allen (Washington State University);
Shorna Broussard (Cornell) srb@fnr.purdue.edu;
Don Dillman (Washington) dillman@wsu.edu;
Courtney Flint (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana) cflint@uiuc.edu;
Glenn Israel (Florida) gdisrael@ufl.edu;
Bob Mason (Oregon) masonr@stat.orst.edu;
Angela Mertig (Middle Tennessee State) amertig@mtsu.edu;
Fred Lorenz (Secretary: Iowa) folorenz@iastate.edu;
Rob Robertson (New Hampshire) robertr@cisuix.unh.edu;
Steve Swinford (Montana) swinford@montana.edu

There are two new members, but they werent able to attend this year:

;

Nick Place (University of Maryland);
Wuyang Hu (University of Kentucky

The following are members or still have interest but were not able to attend:

;

Brad Gentner (Nat. Oceanic and Atmosph. Admin) brad.gentner@noaa.gov;
Marilyn Smith (Nevada) smithm@unce.unr.edu;
Brian Meekins (BLS) Meekins_B@bls.gov;
Todd Rockwood (Minnesota) trockwood@mn.rr.com;
Robie Sangster (BLS) Sangster_R@bls.gov;
Loretta Singletary (UN, Reno) singletary1@unce.unr.edu;
John Saltiel (Montana) jsaltiel@.gmail.com;
Fern Willits (Pennsylvania) fkw@psu.edu;

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes (see complete details of meeting minutes in the attachment)

WDC-14 (WERA-1001): Experiments in Survey

Februrary 28-29, 2008

The 2008 annual meeting of WERA-1001 (WDC-14) was convened by Chair Ginny Lesser at 8:15am on February 28 at Tucson Inn Suites.

Opening administrative announcements: We discussed two related administrative concerns. First, we submitted a renewal proposal for WERA-1001, but it was not approved. One criticism was that it did not pay close enough attention to outreach. A revised proposal is in preparation that addresses this concern. Because we were not renewed, we are meeting this year as a temporary committee (WDC-14). We will resume next year as WERA-1001 if the revised proposal is approved.

Second, during the past decade Vicki McCracken has served as our administrative advisor and has contributed to the substantive discussions of the committee. Ginny announced that Vicki has stepped down from her administrative duties at Washington State. Because Vicki is no longer an administrator, she can no longer serve as our administrative advisor. Don noted that we can request specific people to serve as our administrative advisor. One suggestion was Jim Christensen, who is at the University of Arizona and an administrative director. Don agreed to follow up with Jim and appropriate Western Regional administrators to see if that would be agreeable to all concerned.

The members of WERA-1001 thanked Vicki for her many years of service and interest.

Meeting agenda: The agenda sent out before the meeting by Chair Ginny Lesser was approved. The topics were:

(1) A critique of current web survey software, especially SM;

(2) the US Postal Systems Delivery Sequence Files (DSF) as an alternative to increasingly more problematic approaches to sampling such as random digit dialing;

(3) mixed-mode surveys conducted during the past year;

(4) new research on spacing for open-ended questions;

(5) strategies for improving outreach: and

(6) state reports on experiments planned for the next 12 months and on completed experiments not subsumed under points (2)-(5).

Meeting adjourned.

Next year: Feb 26-27, 2008.

See Attached file for complete meeting details.

Accomplishments

Members critiqued proposed survey designs and instruments proposed for use by other committee members.<p><br /> <br /> Members coordinated experimental designs for work on survey methodology studies planned by several members in 2008. A number of members worked jointly on mixed-mode studies and studies investigating the impact of open-ended questions.<p><br /> <br /> Members jointly presented a topic-contributed session on open-ended questions at the annual meeting of the American Statistical Association.<p><br /> <br /> Members presented short courses on survey methods (see details in minutes) to AES faculty and staff.<p><br /> <br /> Members participated in the 2007 annual meeting which included a presentation on the latest version of survey software to conduct web surveys. This information is then shared with AES faculty and staff that consult with committee members on new survey technology.<br />

Publications

1. Christian, Leah Melani, Don A. Dillman, and Jolene, D. Smith. 2007. "Helping Respondents Get it Right the First Time: The Influence of Words, Symbols, and Graphics in Web Surveys." Public Opinion Quarterly 71(1): 113-125.<br /> <br /> 2. Dillman, Don A. and Jolene D. Smyth. 2007. "Design Effects in the Transition from Telephone to Web Surveys." American Journal of Prevention Medicine. 32 (5S):S90-S95.<br /> <br /> 3. Dillman, Don A., Virginia Lesser, Robert Mason, John Carlson, Fern Willits, Rob Robertson, Bryan Burke. 2007. "Personalization of Mail Surveys for General Public and Populations with a Group Identity: Results from Nine Studies." Rural Sociology 72(4): 632-646.<br /> <br /> 4. Dillman, Don A. 2007. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design, Second Edition-2007 Update. John Wiley: Hoboken, NJ. 565 pp. ISBN: 0-470-03856-x. 523 pp.<br /> <br /> 5. Flint, C.G. 2007. Changing forest disturbance regimes and risk perceptions in Homer, Alaska. Risk Analysis. 27(6):1597-1608.<br /> <br /> 6. Flint, C.G. and A.E. Luloff. 2007. Community activeness in response to forest disturbance in Alaska. Society and Natural Resources. 20(5):431-450.<br /> <br /> 7. Lesser, V.M. and L. Newton. 2007. Comparison of Delivery Methods in a Survey Distributed by Internet, Mail, and Telephone. Proceedings of the International Statistics Institute Meetings, Lisbon, Portugal. <br /> <br /> 8. Lorenz, Frederick O., Janet N. Melby, Rand D. Conger & Xia Xu. (2007). The effects of context on the correspondence between observational ratings and questionnaire reports of hostile behavior: A multitrait, multimethod approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(3), 498 - 509.<br /> <br /> 9. Martin, Elizabeth Ann and Don A. Dillman. 2007. "Does a Final Coverage Check Identify Census Omissions and reduce errors?" Preliminary Results of an Experiment, Proceedings Joint Statistical Meetings, American Statistical Association, Seattle, August 19, 2006.<br /> <br /> 10. Martin, Elizabeth, Jennifer Hunter Childs, Theresa DeMaio, Joan Hill, Courtney Reiser, Eleanor Gerber, Kathleen Styles, and Don A. Dillman. 2007. Guidelines for Designing Questionnaires for Administration in Different Modes. U.S. Census Bureau: Suitland, MD. 120 pages.<br /> <br /> 11. Mahon-Haft, Don A. Dillman and Nicholas Parsons. 2007. Cognitive Evaluations of Potential Questions About the Influence of Community College on Decisions to be a scientist or engineer. Social and Economic Sciences Research Center Technical Report 07-45. Washington State University: Pullman. August. 87 pages.<br /> <br /> 12. Mertig, Angela G. 2007. The Use of Soil Amendments in Tennessee: A Survey of Farmers. Report to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. August. 82 pp., 2 appendices.<br /> <br /> 13. Morzillo, Anita T., Angela G. Mertig, Nathan Garner and Jianguo Liu. 2007. "Spatial Distribution of Attitudes Toward Proposed Management Strategies for a Wildlife Reintroduction." Human Dimensions of Wildlife 12: 15-29.<br /> <br /> 14. Morzillo, Anita T., Angela G. Mertig, Nathan Garner and Jianguo Liu. 2007. "Resident Attitudes toward Black Bears and Population Recovery in East Texas." Human Dimensions of Wildlife 12: 417-428.<br /> <br /> 15. Parsons, Nicholas, Taj Mahon-Haft and Don A. Dillman. 2007. Cognitive Evaluations of Potential Questions for SESTAT Surveys to Determine the Influence of Community College on Educational and Work Choices: Round 2. Social and Economic Sciences Research Center Technical Report 07-58. Washington State University: Pullman. October, 2007. 64 pages.<br /> <br /> 16. Peterson, M. Nils, Angela G. Mertig and Jianguo Liu. 2007. "Influence of Urban Immigrants on Outdoor Recreation and Land Use in Teton Valley." Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 25 (4): 25-38.<br /> <br /> 17. Smyth, Jolene D., Dillman, Don A. and Leah Melani Christian. 2007. Chapter 27. "Context effects in Internet surveys." In Reips, Ulf-Dietrich, et al. (eds.) Handbook of Internet Research, Oxford University Press. Pp.427-443.<br /> <br /> 18. Stern, Michael J., Don A. Dillman and Jolene D. Smyth. 2007. "Visual Design, Order Effects, and Respondent Characteristics in a Self-Administered Survey." Survey Research Methods. 1 (3): 1-18. http://www.surveymethods.org <br /> <br /> 19. The Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE). (2007). Improving Information About America's Farms & Ranches: A Review of the Census of Agriculture. Washington, DC. (Lesser is one of multiple authors on report).<br /> <br /> 20. Wu, E., L. L. Robison, M. E. Jenney, T. H. Rockwood, J. Feusner, D. Friedman, R. L. Kane and S. Bhatia (2007). "Assessment of health-related quality of life of adolescent cancer patients using the Minneapolis-Manchester Quality of Life Adolescent Questionnaire." Pediatric Blood & Cancer 48(7): 678-86.<br />

Impact Statements

1. The past year the committee has been investigating the impact of how one asks and presents the visual display for open-ended questions that appear in survey questionnaires. Preliminary results by committee members show that the presentation of the question does influence results. The committee is continuing to work on this topic. Four members of the committee presented preliminary results at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Statistical Association. Committee members intend to work on a joint publication to share the results of their research to other researchers.
2. Members of this committee have presented short courses or workshops (to Agricultural Extension Staff) on ways to conduct better quality surveys which has been improving surveys conducted by AES. Attendees of these short courses have followed up with committee members to provide advice on improving their surveys.

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