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Envisioning the 2020 Census (2010) / Chapter Skim
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2 Initial Views on 2010 Census Experiments
Pages 225-246

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From page 225...
... The assessments of these topics, in particular, represent a considerable advance over the processes used to select the evaluations and experiments prior to the 2000 census. However, we think that the Census Bureau can go further, when preparing for the analogous 2020 CPEX program, by providing a more developed context for evaluating various topics for potential census experiments.
From page 226...
... 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 alter native to mailing back census questionnaires for data collection?
From page 227...
... The three recommendations in this chapter on experimentation should be considered by the Census Bureau as the three highest priority recommendations in this report. Throughout, the panel was mindful of the special context that the decennial census provides for experimentation, and therefore one additional criterion applied was whether experimentation for the topic under consideration would substantially benefit from a decennial census environment.
From page 228...
... 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)
From page 229...
... First, it believes that it is unlikely to appreciably improve the rate of response given the results of the 2003 and 2005 National Census Tests. Second, there are issues related to security that need to be considered, including the potential for hackers to disrupt the data collection, in addition to any public perception problems that are related to security concerns.3 It is not our charge to evaluate the Census Bureau's decision not to use the Internet for data collection in the 2010 census.
From page 230...
... 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.
From page 231...
... • as an alternative to item and unit imputation: in the situations in which the Census Bureau uses either item or unit imputation (see Na tional Research Council, 2004a, for a discussion of when unit impu tation was used in the 2000 census) , information from administrative records could be used as input to the imputation.
From page 232...
... In addition, looking toward 2020, the quality of administrative records has been steadily improving over time. E-StARS, the Census Bureau's merged list of unique administrative records for indi 8 E-StARS is a nationwide multipurpose research database, which combines administrative records from a variety of federal and state government sources and commercial databases with micro-data modeling to produce statistics for housing units and individuals that are comparable to decennial census results.
From page 233...
... (This suggestion is closely related to items C.2 and C.6 on the Census Bureau's list of issues.) A particular means by which administrative records could be used to reduce field costs, at the price of possibly only a negligible reduction in data quality, is targeting.
From page 234...
... that assesses the utility of admin istrative 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 sta tus, and for coverage improvement. In addition, either as an ex periment or through evaluations, the Census Bureau should col lect 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.
From page 235...
... In thinking about an alternative questionnaire experiment or experiments for the 2010 census, the question is: Which sets of possible changes to the census questionnaire most need (or would most benefit) from being conducted in the census environment?
From page 236...
... 236 INTERIM REPORT Figure 2-1 First page (Person 1) , draft 2008 dress rehearsal questionnaire SOURCE: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2007/questionnaire_4_24_07.pdf.
From page 237...
... INITIAL VIEWS ON 2010 CENSUS EXPERIMENTS 237 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.
From page 238...
... . 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)
From page 239...
... The Census Bureau has developed sets of residence rules to determine how to handle cases in which residential location may be ambiguous. Since the switch to reliance on the mail for most census data collection, the phrasing of Question 1 and the instructions that accompany it have been continually revised in order to guide census respondents to reporting their own residential situation in a way that is consistent with the Census Bureau's residence rules.
From page 240...
... 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.
From page 241...
... There may be too many issues for a single experiment and therefore there may be a need to further prioritize these issues before finalizing an alternative questionnaire experiment. Coverage Probes Two coverage probes will be included on the 2010 census questionnaire for the first time.
From page 242...
... This proposal to use the prior census questionnaire as a control group treatment has not always been carried out in past alternative questionnaire experiments. Implementing it is consistent with guidance from the previous National Research Council (2006:Rec.
From page 243...
... Item H.1 on the Census Bureau's list argues that looking at this issue in a census environment is important, and the panel agrees, since response to mail materials differs in a census in comparison to either a test census or a survey environment. We have described a number of issues that relate to the content and the presentation of the census questionnaire, including race and ethnicity, residence rules, coverage probes, providing a motivation for the cooperation of respondents, collection of alternate address data for residents of group quarters, and deadline messaging.
From page 244...
... To reduce these costs, the Census Bureau is planning to follow up these households by telephone only (and therefore only for those households that provide a contact telephone number on the census questionnaire)
From page 245...
... Census Bureau; see also National Research Council (2006:Box 6-3)
From page 246...
... 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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