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Methodological Report
In 2015, the UIS Survey Research Office
(SRO) became a charter member of the
American Association for Public Opinions
Research’s Transparency Initiative (TI). By
joining the TI, the SRO is supporting broader
and more effective disclosure of research
methods by all organizations. The
Transparency Initiative provides formal
public recognition by AAPOR of an
organization's voluntary commitment to
abide by the disclosure standards in the
AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and
Practices, while benefiting the public by
providing more information with which to
evaluate the quality of individual surveys.
As part of SRO’s continued investment in
this initiative, it has committed to providing
a detailed methodological report of all of its
survey projects. For more information on
the TI, please visit
http://www.aapor.org/AAPORKentico/Trans
parency-Initiative.aspx.
Transparency Initiative Methodological
Report
The 2015 Sangamon County Citizen Survey
is sponsored by the Community Foundation
for the Land of Lincoln, United Way of
Central Illinois, and the University of Illinois
Springfield’s Center for State Policy and
Leadership. It was conducted by researchers
at the University of Illinois Springfield’s
Survey Research Office. A steering
committee assisted with questionnaire
development (listed on the following page).
The topline report includes actual question
wording and frequencies for each answer
category as well as all open-ended
responses.
Sample and Methodology
The survey is representative of Sangamon
County, Illinois and the data was weighted
for probability sampling and to match the
most recent population estimates as
provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Both of
these weighting procedures are done in
order for the survey to be demographically
representative of the County.
The results include 576 completed
telephone interviews (32% completed by
landline numbers and 68% completed by
cell phones) of Sangamon County residents.
The overall response rate for the survey is
13.2%, the cooperation rate is 23.2%, and
the margin of error is +/- 4.08 percentage
points. Telephone interviews began on April
15, 2015 and concluded on May 18, 2015.
Interviews were conducted between the
hours of 9am and 9pm, Monday through
Friday, and 1-5pm on Sunday. All
respondents were contacted at least once
with the average number of attempted
phone calls of 4. The maximum number of
attempts for a respondent is 10 attempts.
For more information on this study, please
contact SRO Director, Dr. Ashley Kirzinger at
[email protected], or 217-206-6591.