Posted on December 11, 2015 at 6:37 pm by Nicole Acker
Menlo Park has conducted a community survey of resident perceptions of services and other topics for many years. This year, in order to gather more specific information related to benchmarks closer to home, the City has a contract with Godbe Research to conduct the community survey as presented in an information report to Council.
Godbe uses a hybrid Internet and telephone survey of voters as opposed to previous surveys that were conducted via a mail survey process. The recommendation for change helps to counteract declining response rates to surveys in general, and especially among residents under age 50. This methodological approach leverages response technologies preferred by certain age groups. The Internet survey is of residents (typically ages 18 to 49), then the telephone survey methodology will round out the demographic and geographic quotas, as well as capture interviews with residents age 50, who still prefer telephone surveys. Second, since about 2012, we have seen a severe decline in response rates in land-line telephone samples (RDD samples) because many residents have abandoned their land-lines altogether. Accordingly, the sampling approach uses a listed voter sample, as this sample has a given resident’s self-reported primary phone number (land line and/or cell phone) as well.
Godbe started the survey this week and will conclude data collection within 10 days. A full report will be made to the City Council at their upcoming goal-setting session in January 2016.
