Please note this event will take place online via Zoom.
Speakers: Patricia Goerman, Yazmín Garcia Trejo and Mikelyn Meyers, U.S. Census Bureau
The inclusion of respondent perspectives in the survey development process through pretesting (e.g., testing the quality of questions in a survey before data collection) is a topic that has received a great deal of attention over the years.
A number of researchers and organizations have designed best practices for pretesting survey translations through methods such cognitive and usability testing, for example the Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI) group’s Cross Cultural Survey Guidelines.
In this webinar Patricia Goerman, Yazmín Garcia Trejo and Mikelyn Meyers will briefly discuss traditional methods for the pretesting of survey translations.
They will then focus on emerging methods for including respondent voices in survey development that are in use at the U.S. Census Bureau.
First, they will discuss findings from a recent publication on the use of online non-probability opt-in panels for cognitive pretesting in English and Spanish.
Second, they will touch on a recent pilot where the Advance Translation method was implemented in the design of a multilingual housing survey.
Finally, they will discuss an exploratory project where we are seeking to evaluate machine learning and the ability to use audio recordings across languages to identify issues with survey question administration and understanding by respondents.
The webinar will conclude with a discussion of goals for future research.
About the speakers:
Patricia Goerman leads the Language and Cross-Cultural Research Group in the Center for Behavioral Science Methods at the U.S. Census Bureau. Dr. Goerman has 18 years of experience in the development and pretesting of multilingual survey instruments, with a focus on Spanish-language materials.
Her research interests include questionnaire design and translation, cross-cultural issues in surveys, inclusion of respondent voices in questionnaire development through pretesting and interviewer doorstep messages.
She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Virginia. She has been a member of the Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI) executive committee since 2017 and has co-chaired the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Cross-Cultural and Multilingual Research Affinity Group since 2016. She also serves as President of DC-AAPOR in 2022.
Dr. Yazmín García Trejo is a social science researcher at the U.S. Census Bureau's Center for Behavioral Science Methods. She is a member of the Language and Cross-Cultural Research group. She was part of the team of researchers who worked on the foundational research for the 2020 Census communications campaign.
Her expertise is on survey methodology, pre-testing (cognitive interviews and usability testing), civic knowledge and communications research with a focus on historically undercounted populations.
She holds a Ph.D. in political science, and M.A. degrees in survey research and Latin American studies from the University of Connecticut. Her list of publications can be found here. Her research has been featured in the Census blog, in the New York Times and in BYU radio.
Mikelyn Meyers is a sociolinguist with fourteen years of experience researching the design of linguistically and culturally appropriate translated survey materials. She works in the Language and Cross-Cultural Research Group in the Center for Behavioral Science Methods at the U.S. Census Bureau and has an M.S. in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University.
Her research interests include optimizing internet surveys and websites for speakers of non-English languages, interviewer training on surveying non-English-speaking respondents, and confidentiality concerns in immigrant households.
She was recently selected by the Multilingual Community of Practice to serve on an interagency task force that drafted guidelines for the United States Web Design System on making non-English material more accessible on federal websites.
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