\documentstyle[12pt,bj,txfonts]{article}

\begin{document}

\section*{Sampling plan}

\begin{itemize}

\item Great to be trying a phone survey, and great that you found
  phones.whitepages.com/412.

\item Don't call cell \#'s.  Generally speaking people have to call
  for incoming minutes; this is a burden you shouldn't impose. 

\item You might want to stratify by major region of the city
  (Downtown, Oakland/campus area, east end, South side, etc.) but I
  advise against stratifying by neighborhood or telephone exchange.
\begin{itemize}
\item Actually, I \ul{\bf strongly suggest} you do a srs, using a method for
  phone numbers similar to what i suggested for cbook: for each
  xxx-yyyy number randomly choose an (xxx,yyyy) pair where xxx is a
  random choice of one of the non-cellphone exchanges in 412, and yyyy
  is a random \# from 0000 to 9999.
\item since you are asking for neighborhood in your survey anyway you
  can get some regional information without stratifying, and it will
  greatly simplify your data collection.
\item you will need to keep track of not-answered phones, etc, in
  order to followup non-responses, compute a nonresponse rate, etc.
\end{itemize}
PLEASE PROVIDE AN ESTIMATED SAMPLE SIZE FOR YOUR SURVEY.  THAT IS PART
OF THIS ASSIGNMENT!

\end{itemize}

\section*{Questionnaire and interview script}

\begin{itemize}

\item Your questionnaire needs to be reformatted into an interview
  script, so that you make the same introduction, ask for the same
  type of person, and ask the same questions in the same way, with
  every household you successfully contact.  \\

  {\bf you need to set the script up as soon as possible and try it
    out, both for ``successful'' interviews and for ones that go
    off-track, so you can anticipate some of the possible problems
    that will arise, and so that you can refine and clarify your
    questions.} 

\item I am attaching a couple of documents that have advice on how to
  set up the beginning of a phone interview script, and what some of
  the issues are.  \\

Generally a script should have the following elements (some example
text is provided, it will need to be improved for your script!)
\begin{description}

\item[Introduction] Hello, I am XXX, a student at Carnegie Mellon
  University, calling you as part of a survey for our class ZZZZ.
\begin{itemize}
\item Is this a home, or apartment?  [if not, apologize, thank the
    person and end call ]
\item I would like to speak to XXXX (you have to choose who you want
  to talk to, and make the same choice for every household.  if that
  kind of person is not avail, apologize, thanks, and end call)
\end{itemize}
when person you want gets on the phone:
\begin{itemize}
\item Hello, I am XXX, a student at Carnegie Mellon University,
  calling you as part of a survey for our class ZZZZ.\\

  (if asked at any time during survey) Please feel free to contact our
  instructor, Brian Junker, 412 268 8874, at Carnegie Mellon
  University, with any questions you may have about this survey or our
  class.

\item   your phone \# was randomly selected for this survey.  The survey is
  about bicycle usage in pgh. The survey has XX questions and will
  take approximately YY minutes to complete.  

\item Your phone number will not be associated with your responses,
  and the information from the survey will only be reported in
  summarized form, and your responses will be kept confidential.  {\em
    Your participation is completely voluntary and you may refuse to
    answer any question you wish, and you may stop at any time.}

\item Do you wish to start the survey?  [if no, sorry, thanks, end call]
\end{itemize}

\item[Body of survey] This is where you ask the survey questions.


\begin{itemize}

\item Every question should be carefully worded, and practiced by you,
  for clear speaking, simple and easy to follow formal English, etc.

\item Structure the survey so that similar questions are grouped
  together.  If possible a ``key question'' can eliminate others.
\begin{itemize}
\item
  For example, ``do you own or use a bike''\ldots{} ``No'' eliminates
  most of the rest of the survey!
\end{itemize}

\item Anticipate problems and have something in the script to address
  them.
\begin{itemize}
\item For example: does the person not understand something (what is a
  neighborhood? what is a sector of the economy?)?  Give examples.

\end{itemize}

\item Have a plan for recording the answers as you get them. Eg.
\begin{itemize}
\item design a paper form that you can xerox copies of for each call.
  it should be easy to read off the script from the form, and it
  should be easy to write answers --- even unusual ones! --- in the
  space after each question.
\item if you prefer do the same thing on a laptop with an
  appropriately formatted msword or excel file -- make a copy of the
  file for each phone contact, and fill it out as you do the
  interview.  Remember to save the file!
\end{itemize}
The person doing the interview should practice practice practice
reading the questions and recording the data so that it goes smoothly
and easily when you are talking to a ``real'' respondent.
\begin{itemize}
\item Always polite
\item Always clear
\item Easy to understand speaking
\item Get all the data
\item don't ask the interviewee to repeat unless you really have to
\item unfazed by anything that might come up (e.g being cussed at) 
\item Always polite
\item Always clear
\item Easy to understand speaking
\end{itemize}

\end{itemize}

\item[End of survey -- whether respondent completed all the questions
  or not!]  Thank you very much for your time.  If you would like to
  find out the results of this survey [tell them how, e.g. maybe
    download your report from a website after date XXX?]

\item Please feel free to contact our instructor, Brian Junker, 412
  268 8874, at Carnegie Mellon University, with any questions you may
  have about this survey or our class. 

\end{description}

\end{itemize}

\end{document}
