Analysis

Description:

The use of Computer Audio-Recorded Interviewing (CARI) as a tool to identify interview falsification is quickly growing in survey research (Biemer, 2000, 2003; Thissen, 2007). Similarly, survey researchers are starting to expand the usefulness of CARI by combining recordings with coding to address data quality (Herget, 2001; Hansen, 2005; McGee, 2007). This paper presents results from a study included as part of the establishment-based National Center for Health Statistics' National Home and Hospice Care Survey (NHHCS) which used CARI behavior coding and CARI-specific paradata to: 1) identify and correct problematic interviewer behavior or question issues early in the data collection period before either negatively impact data quality, and; 2) identify ways to diminish measurement error in future implementations of the NHHCS. During the first 9 weeks of the 30-week field period, CARI recorded a subset of questions from the NHHCS application for all interviewers. Recordings were linked with the interview application and output and then coded in one of two modes: Code by Interviewer or Code by Question. The Code by Interviewer method provided visibility into problems specific to an interviewer as well as more generalized problems potentially applicable to all interviewers. The Code by Question method yielded data that spoke to understandability of the questions and other response problems. In this mode, coders coded multiple implementations of the same question across multiple interviewers. Using the Code by Question approach, researchers identified issues with three key survey questions in the first few weeks of data collection and provided guidance to interviewers in how to handle those questions as data collection continued. Results from coding the audio recordings (which were linked with the survey application and output) will inform question wording and interviewer training in the next implementation of the NHHCS, and guide future enhancement of CARI and the coding system.

Description:

Business surveys differ from surveys of populations of individual persons or households in many respects. Two of the most important differences are (a) that respondents in business surveys do not answer questions about characteristics of themselves (such as their experiences, behaviours, attitudes and feelings) but about characteristics of organizations (such as their size, revenues, policies, and strategies) and (b) that they answer these questions as an informant for that organization. Academic business surveys differ from other business surveys, such as of national statistical agencies, in many respects as well. The one most important difference is that academic business surveys usually do not aim at generating descriptive statistics but at testing hypotheses, i.e. relations between variables. Response rates in academic business surveys are very low, which implies a huge risk of non-response bias. Usually no attempt is made to assess the extent of non-response bias and published survey results might, therefore, not be a correct reflection of actual relations within the population, which in return increases the likelihood that the reported test result is not correct.

This paper provides an analysis of how (the risk of) non-response bias is discussed in research papers published in top management journals. It demonstrates that non-response bias is not assessed to a sufficient degree and that, if attempted at all, correction of non-response bias is difficult or very costly in practice. Three approaches to dealing with this problem are presented and discussed:(a) obtaining data by other means than questionnaires;(b) conducting surveys of very small populations; and(c) conducting surveys of very small samples.

It will be discussed why these approaches are appropriate means of testing hypotheses in populations. Trade-offs regarding the selection of an approach will be discussed as well.

Description:

Telephone Data Entry (TDE) is a system by which survey respondents can return their data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using the keypad on their telephone and currently accounts for approximately 12% of total responses to ONS business surveys. ONS is currently increasing the number of surveys which use TDE as the primary mode of response and this paper gives an overview of the redevelopment project covering; the redevelopment of the paper questionnaire, enhancements made to the TDE system and the results from piloting these changes. Improvements to the quality of the data received and increased response via TDE as a result of these developments suggest that data quality improvements and cost savings are possible as a result of promoting TDE as the primary mode of response to short term surveys.

Description:

The Unified Enterprise Survey (UES) at Statistics Canada is an annual business survey that unifies more than 60 surveys from different industries. Two types of collection follow-up score functions are currently used in the UES data collection. The objective of using a score function is to maximize the economically weighted response rates of the survey in terms of the primary variables of interest, under the constraint of a limited follow-up budget. Since the two types of score functions are based on different methodologies, they could have different impacts on the final estimates.

This study generally compares the two types of score functions based on the collection data obtained from the two recent years. For comparison purposes, this study applies each score function method to the same data respectively and computes various estimates of the published financial and commodity variables, their deviation from the true pseudo value and their mean square deviation, based on each method. These estimates of deviation and mean square deviation based on each method are then used to measure the impact of each score function on the final estimates of the financial and commodity variables.

Description:

Non-response is inevitable in any survey, despite all the effort put into reducing it at the various stages of the survey. In particular, non-response can cause bias in the estimates. In addition, non-response is an especially serious problem in longitudinal studies because the sample shrinks over time. France's ELFE (Étude Longitudinale Française depuis l'Enfance) is a project that aims to track 20,000 children from birth to adulthood using a multidisciplinary approach. This paper is based on the results of the initial pilot studies conducted in 2007 to test the survey's feasibility and acceptance. The participation rates are presented (response rate, non-response factors) along with a preliminary description of the non-response treatment methods being considered.

Description:

Increasingly, children of all ages are becoming respondents in survey interviews. While juveniles are considered to be reliable respondents for many topics and survey settings it is unclear to what extend younger children provide reliable information in a face-to-face interview. In this paper we will report results from a study using video captures of 205 face-to-face interviews with children aged 8 through 14. The interviews have been coded using behavior codes on a question by question level which provides behavior-related indicators regarding the question-answer process. In addition, standard tests of cognitive resources have been conducted. Using visible and audible problems in the respondent behavior, we are able to assess the impact of the children's cognitive resources on respondent behaviors. Results suggest that girls and boys differ fundamentally in the cognitive mechanisms leading to problematic respondent behaviors.

Description:

The ÉLDEQ initiated a special data gathering project in March 2008 with the collection of biological materials from 1,973 families. During a typical visit, a nurse collects a blood or saliva sample from the selected child, makes a series of measurements (anthropometry, pulse rate and blood pressure) and administers questionnaires. Planned and supervised by the Institut de la Statistique du Québec (ISQ) and the Université de Montréal, the study is being conducted in cooperation with two private firms and a number of hospitals. This article examines the choice of collection methods, the division of effort among the various players, the sequence of communications and contacts with respondents, the tracing of families who are not contacted, and follow-up on the biological samples. Preliminary field results are also presented.

Description:

BackgroundThere has been a reluctance to conduct child related research studies with, rather than on children in the African continent. Several studies have embarked on this method, however, ethical and privacy challenges still prevail. The Amajuba Child Health and Wellbeing Research Project is a longitudinal study that was conducted with 725 children aged between 9 and 15 years old in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa and also faced the same challenges.

MethodsFocus group discussions and self administered questionnaires were used as data collection techniques for ACHWRP. One of ACHWRP's objectives is to document the consequences of parental or caregiver death on health and well-being of orphans in Amajuba District of KwaZulu Natal. Ethical clearance was received from two ethical review boards.

Lessons learnedEthical challenges included problems of coercion for participation, gatekeeper's and partner's roles, getting consent and assent, recruitment and referral system.Privacy challenges included data collection techniques, curiosity and destruction by members of the family during an interview, the setting where interviews are conducted, logistical issues and the method of recruitment's potential to compromise confidentiality.Resolutions: Detailed consent and assent forms with all relevant information are necessary. Careful selection of partnerships is crucial. Use of a venue that is far from the community is necessary, but in the process making sure that the participants are covered with regards to the expenses of travelling to the venue.

ConclusionConducting research with children entails investing more time and attention to the planning stage of the study.

Description:

Statistics Netherlands (SN) has been using electronic questionnaires for Business surveys since the early nineties. Some years ago SN decided to invest in a large scale use of electronic questionnaires. The big yearly production survey of about 80 000 forms, divided over many different economical activity areas, was redesigned using a meta database driven approach. The resulting system is able to generate non-intelligent personalized PDF forms and intelligent personalized Blaise forms. The Blaise forms are used by a new tool in the Blaise system which can be downloaded by the respondents from the SN web site to run the questionnaire off-line. Essential to the system is the SN house style for paper and electronic forms. The flexibility of the new tool offered the questionnaire designers the possibility to implement a user friendly form according to this house style.

Part of the implementation is an audit trail that offers insight in the way respondents operate the questionnaire program. The entered data including the audit trail can be transferred via encrypted e-mail or through the internet to SN. The paper will give an outline of the overall system architecture and the role of Blaise in the system. It will also describe the results of using the system for several years now and some results of the analysis of the audit trail.

Description:

Surveys that employ simultaneous web, CATI, and paper modes (or any two-way subset) are increasingly common. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc (MPR) has deployed several of these types of surveys in Blaise. This paper reviews MPR's experiences and issues with these efforts by addressing instrumentation, survey management, and other considerations. The paper emphasizes the electronic implementation of these surveys and covers topics that emerge solely from the surveys' multimode nature; that is, material that goes beyond the implementation of a single-mode survey.

Description:

This fact sheet provides information on the proportion of the school-age population - defined as children and youth aged 5 to 24 - living in low-income circumstances, including the duration of low-income spells, using data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID). The percentage of children in low-income is calculated based on Statistics Canada's low income cut-offs (LICOs), using data on family income after government benefits are received and after federal and provincial taxes are paid.

Description:

The information in this document is intended primarily to be used by scientific and technological (S&T) policy makers, both federal and provincial, largely as a basis for inter-provincial and inter-sectoral comparisons. The statistics are aggregates of the provincial government and provincial research organization science surveys conducted by Statistics Canada under contract with the provinces, and cover the period 2002/2003 to 2006/2007.

Description:

Revised estimates of the Income and Expenditure Accounts (IEA) covering the period 2005 to 2008 have been released along with those for the first quarter of 2009. These revised estimates incorporate the most current source data and seasonal patterns.

Description:

Quarterly international merchandise trade statistics are published approximately six weeks after the reference period. Two weeks later, these data are incorporated into the Income and Expenditure Accounts, at which point they are subject to revision. This note outlines the primary sources of the revisions.

Description:

This fact sheet looks at enrolment in and graduation from registered apprenticeship programs, and programs offered at colleges and universities. It also examines differences in the proportions of men and women among students and graduates for these types of education, and within different fields of study. Tables released at the same time as this fact sheet complement the text and summarize data for Canada and the provinces and territories. The data were obtained from the Labour Force Survey, the Postsecondary Student Information System and the Registered Apprenticeship Information System.

Description:

This publication presents recent information on the performance and funding of Federal government expenditures on scientific activities, 2009/2010. The statistics presented are derived from the survey of science and technology (S&T) activities of federal departments and agencies. The data in this release are consistent with expenditures of departments and agencies as reported in the Main Estimates 2009/2010, but do not reflect changes to 2009/2010 spending plans which may result from supplementary estimates or other departmental planning decisions.

Description:

The higher education sector is composed of all universities, colleges of technology and other institutes of postsecondary education, whatever their source of finance or legal status. It also includes all research institutes, experimental stations and clinics operating under the direct control of, or administered by, or associated with higher education establishments.

Description:

The universe for the RDCI consists of all firms known or believed to be involved in the performance or funding of R&D. The frame for this survey has a long history spanning back to the conception of the survey more than 50 years ago. Firms are identified through many sources but most frequently firms are added from the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) T661 files.

Description:

This fact sheet provides summary information about students' transitions from school to the labour market, based on data showing employment status, earnings, and the mobility of students and graduates across Canada. Charts and tables released at the same time as this fact sheet complement the text and summarize data for Canada, the provinces and the territories from the Labour Force Survey, the National Graduates Survey, and the Follow-up of Graduates Survey.

Description:

Canada's economic competitiveness depends on scientific and technological development and also on the people responsible for this development, especially those engaged in R&D. In an earlier Science statistics bulletin, we published the gross domestic expenditures on R&D in Canada (GERD). This issue presents a supplementary measure to the GERD, the number of personnel who perform Canada's R&D activities.

Description:

This paper highlights the Canadian Tourism Satellite Account (CTSA) developed by Statistics Canada. The CTSA provides an economic measure of the importance of tourism in terms of expenditures, Gross Domestic Product and employment for Canada. It permits a comparison of tourism with other industries within Canada since the concepts and methods used are based on the framework of the Canadian System of National Accounts. The study revealed that tourism is an important part of Canada's well diversified economy. This paper presents the results of the CTSA for reference year 2004.

This study was prepared by staff of the Research and Development Projects and Analysis Section, Income and Expenditure Accounts Division, Statistics Canada. The study was funded by the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Description:

Surveys are frequently required to produce estimates for subpopulations, sometimes for a single subpopulation and sometimes for several subpopulations in addition to the total population. When membership of a rare subpopulation (or domain) can be determined from the sampling frame, selecting the required domain sample size is relatively straightforward. In this case the main issue is the extent of oversampling to employ when survey estimates are required for several domains and for the total population. Sampling and oversampling rare domains whose members cannot be identified in advance present a major challenge. A variety of methods has been used in this situation. In addition to large-scale screening, these methods include disproportionate stratified sampling, two-phase sampling, the use of multiple frames, multiplicity sampling, panel surveys, and the use of multi-purpose surveys. This paper illustrates the application of these methods in a range of social surveys.

Description:

Randomized response strategies, which have originally been developed as statistical methods to reduce nonresponse as well as untruthful answering, can also be applied in the field of statistical disclosure control for public use microdata files. In this paper a standardization of randomized response techniques for the estimation of proportions of identifying or sensitive attributes is presented. The statistical properties of the standardized estimator are derived for general probability sampling. In order to analyse the effect of different choices of the method's implicit "design parameters" on the performance of the estimator we have to include measures of privacy protection in our considerations. These yield variance-optimum design parameters given a certain level of privacy protection. To this end the variables have to be classified into different categories of sensitivity. A real-data example applies the technique in a survey on academic cheating behaviour.

Description:

We examine overcoming the overestimation in using generalized weight share method (GWSM) caused by link nonresponse in indirect sampling. A few adjustment methods incorporating link nonresponse in using GWSM have been constructed for situations both with and without the availability of auxiliary variables. A simulation study on a longitudinal survey is presented using some of the adjustment methods we recommend. The simulation results show that these adjusted GWSMs perform well in reducing both estimation bias and variance. The advancement in bias reduction is significant.

Description:

Propensity weighting is a procedure to adjust for unit nonresponse in surveys. A form of implementing this procedure consists of dividing the sampling weights by estimates of the probabilities that the sampled units respond to the survey. Typically, these estimates are obtained by fitting parametric models, such as logistic regression. The resulting adjusted estimators may become biased when the specified parametric models are incorrect. To avoid misspecifying such a model, we consider nonparametric estimation of the response probabilities by local polynomial regression. We study the asymptotic properties of the resulting estimator under quasi-randomization. The practical behavior of the proposed nonresponse adjustment approach is evaluated on NHANES data.

Description:

In this paper a multivariate structural time series model is described that accounts for the panel design of the Dutch Labour Force Survey and is applied to estimate monthly unemployment rates. Compared to the generalized regression estimator, this approach results in a substantial increase of the accuracy due to a reduction of the standard error and the explicit modelling of the bias between the subsequent waves.

Description:

Estimation of small area (or domain) compositions may suffer from informative missing data, if the probability of missing varies across the categories of interest as well as the small areas. We develop a double mixed modeling approach that combines a random effects mixed model for the underlying complete data with a random effects mixed model of the differential missing-data mechanism. The effect of sampling design can be incorporated through a quasi-likelihood sampling model. The associated conditional mean squared error of prediction is approximated in terms of a three-part decomposition, corresponding to a naive prediction variance, a positive correction that accounts for the hypothetical parameter estimation uncertainty based on the latent complete data, and another positive correction for the extra variation due to the missing data. We illustrate our approach with an application to the estimation of Municipality household compositions based on the Norwegian register household data, which suffer from informative under-registration of the dwelling identity number.

Description:

This paper proposes an approach for small area prediction based on data obtained from periodic surveys and censuses. We apply our approach to obtain population predictions for the municipalities not sampled in the Brazilian annual Household Survey (PNAD), as well as to increase the precision of the design-based estimates obtained for the sampled municipalities. In addition to the data provided by the PNAD, we use census demographic data from 1991 and 2000, as well as a complete population count conducted in 1996. Hierarchically non-structured and spatially structured growth models that gain strength from all the sampled municipalities are proposed and compared.

Description:

Business surveys often use a one-stage stratified simple random sampling without replacement design with some certainty strata. Although weight adjustment is typically applied for unit nonresponse, the variability due to nonresponse may be omitted in practice when estimating variances. This is problematic especially when there are certainty strata. We derive some variance estimators that are consistent when the number of sampled units in each weighting cell is large, using the jackknife, linearization, and modified jackknife methods. The derived variance estimators are first applied to empirical data from the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and are then examined in a simulation study.

Description:

In large scaled sample surveys it is common practice to employ stratified multistage designs where units are selected using simple random sampling without replacement at each stage. Variance estimation for these types of designs can be quite cumbersome to implement, particularly for non-linear estimators. Various bootstrap methods for variance estimation have been proposed, but most of these are restricted to single-stage designs or two-stage cluster designs. An extension of the rescaled bootstrap method (Rao and Wu 1988) to stratified multistage designs is proposed which can easily be extended to any number of stages. The proposed method is suitable for a wide range of reweighting techniques, including the general class of calibration estimators. A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted to examine the performance of the proposed multistage rescaled bootstrap variance estimator.

Description: This report contains descriptive analysis of the size, scope and nature of Canada's nonprofit sector in economic terms, statistical tables and information on the concepts, and data sources and methods used to compile the estimates.

Description:

This report provides an overview of the first available data on business fraud in Canada focusing on businesses in the retail, banking and insurance sectors. Data used in this report are from the Survey of Fraud against Businesses, 2007-2008. The Survey of Fraud against Businesses provides national-level data on the prevalence and types of fraud experienced, how businesses respond to incidents of fraud, the monetary and non-monetary costs of fraud and fraud detection and prevention practices.

Description:

The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) provides an extensive set of data about Aboriginal (Métis, Inuit, and off-reserve First Nations) children under 6 years of age in urban, rural, and northern locations across Canada. The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) was designed to provide a picture of the early development of Aboriginal children and the social and living conditions in which they are learning and growing.

The survey was developed by Statistics Canada and Aboriginal advisors from across the country and was conducted jointly with Human Resources and Social Development Canada.

Description:

This research paper series addresses many topics related to children and youth in Canada, including: cognitive, physical and emotional development; health; behaviour; relationships with others; experiences in the home, at school and at work; family change; and transitions to adulthood. The main data source for the papers in this series is the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth.

Description:

This report offers highlights from the 2007 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (CSGVP) which was undertaken to better understand how Canadians support individuals and communities on their own or through their involvement with charitable and non-profit organizations. For this survey, thousands of Canadians aged 15 and over were asked how they: gave money and other resources to individuals and to organizations; volunteered time to help others and to enhance their communities; and participated in the practices which help give substance to active citizenship. The results from this survey allow this report to tell a story about who Canada's volunteers and charitable donors are and the ways in which they contribute to our society.

Description:

The bulletin summarizes and highlights new results in the analysis of science, technology and the information society. The articles cover current issues in science and technology activities, advanced technologies, innovation in industry and electronic media. The bulletin is designed to be easily readable by non-experts.

Description: Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis (RSGA) of the Agriculture Division prepared a series of maps and statistics that show the progression of the 2009 Red River valley flood in Manitoba for the spring of 2009. Starting with an image acquired on March 31, the maps were produced from the analysis of Radarsat-2 satellite image data integrated with 2006 Census of Agriculture data and census geography boundary files. From this analysis, the total area of flooded agriculture land and the number of farmers affected were calculated. A comparison is made with the 1997 flood that occurred in the same region.

Description:

To understand the degree to which the supply of workers in health occupations is meeting (and will meet) the health needs of Canadians, Health Canada asked Statistics Canada to study the relationship between education and training and the supply of professionals into health occupations. This series of fact sheets highlights, in summary form, key information relating to the education and training of workers in health and related occupations in Canada.

Description:

This report introduces the Crime Severity Index, a new tool for measuring police-reported crime in Canada that for the first time tracks changes in the severity of crime, not just volume.The report also examines how crime is measured in Canada, as well as recent improvements to statistics on crime that are gathered from the police.

Description:

This is an analytical report on Services to Official-Language Minorities by Health Professionals. This report explores the availability of health professionals who can work in either official language to serve the needs of official language minorities and compares the number of those professionals with the distribution of minority and majority populations in each region of the country.