Survey Process Forum
The work of SRO encompasses survey operations, technology, and survey methodology. The Survey Process Forum (SPF) was created to facilitate the exchange of methodological, technical, and operational information and best practices across not just a project team, but the entire organization. Members of the SPF organizing team come from several SRO units in an effort to identify topics of relevance and interest to all. SPF activities are varied and include:
- Lunch and Learn sessions to share information to expand staff knowledge;
- Informal “open forum” conversations to bring people together for problem solving or initiative development in an effort to foster collaboration and lead to better solutions;
- Journal club group discussions of recent methodological findings that might be applied to current SRO projects;
- Conference preparation sessions, as well as helping to share information from conferences to benefit our organization.
Lunch & Learn and Open Forum Sessions
Statistical Concepts & Terminology
Spring 2025
Six sessions covering five topics: Probability Sampling, Non-Probability Sampling, Weighting, Disposition Codes & Outcome Rates, Dashboards and Reporting.
Probability Sampling – Part 1 Recording
Probability Sampling – Part 1 Slides
Probability Sampling – Part 2 Recording
Probability Sampling – Part 2 Slides
Non-Probability Sampling – Recording
Non-Probability Sampling – Slides
Weighting – Recording
Weighting – Slides
Disposition Codes and Outcome Rates – Recording
Disposition Codes and Outcome Rates – Slides
Dashboards & Reporting – Slides
Mapping & Geocoding – Recording
Mapping & Geocoding – Slides
QC Techniques for Web Surveys
November 15, 2024
This open forum discussion centered on maintaining data quality in SRO web surveys. With self-administered web surveys becoming a larger part of SRO work, we hope to learn more about what QC measures projects have or could take to help ensure that the web interviews are of high quality. The discussion focused on techniques to encourage and to assess quality in two domains:
- Interviews are completed by the intended respondent and
- Interviews are completed with care and accuracy
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Presentation Notes
Respondent Contact Using Email – Session 1 & 2
May 1 and May 8, 2024
Session 1 covers the key components of the general email process and infrastructure, the tools and methods currently used at SRO for emailing survey respondents, and the key metrics used to measure or track email delivery and open rates. Session 2 includes a review of survey research literature as well as direct marketing literature and best practices, and then consider what we as researchers can do to positively impact the effectiveness of email in our studies—in particular, what we can do to protect our “reputation,” and improve the “deliverability” and “open rates” of our survey related emails.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recordings
Principles of Adult Motivation to Learn
August 1, 2023
This session will describe research on the psychology behind why adults engage with learning activities and its implications for training. .
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Principles of Adult Learning
June 12, 2023
Presenters will describe cognitive processes involved in adult learning and their implications for training.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Overview of GIT at SRO
Sept. 14, 2022
This session will introduce you to what standardized interviewing is and why it is important, as well as SRC’s long-time connections to standardized interviewing. We’ll also talk about why it’s important for ALL of us at DRO to be familiar with GIT.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Welcome to GIT Training
Oct. 26, 2022
In this session we’ll get into the process and content of SRO’s GIT. You won’t learn how to do standardized interviewing yourself, but you’ll become familiar with what we teach and how we teach it to our new interviewers.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Implementing GIT
Dec. 5, 2022
This session will discuss what happens after GIT classroom training is complete, including continuing GIT training and skills development, ongoing evaluation of GIT skills, and how GIT continues to evolve.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Open Forum on Projections
February 11, 2022
This session covered:
- An overview of SRO tools available for making, modifying, and monitoring staff projections (e.g., CRS, RFT)
- A discussion on how project leads are using these tools to ensure their projects have sufficient resources, communicate the project needs with staff supervisors & financial analysts, and resolve resource conflicts across projects
- A discussion on how staff and supervisors are using these tools to determine their workload, plan for time away, and look ahead for opportunities
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Clinical Contact Program
November 19, 2021
The SRO-CCP team shared information about the services they provide to respondents, interviewers, projects and the organization. SRO-CCP spoke about how they provide support to meet various needs that arise within SRO, and shared information about the impact of the pandemic on SRO-CCP service utilization
Toll Free Line Support
October 11, 2021
Earlier in 2021, an SSL-PDMG task force was established to review toll-free line best practices. The group shared information about how the SSL supports lab and field projects by providing 800 Line coverage. They talked about the updated best practices and options for handling calls from respondents, what systems the toll free line team uses, and how to request project assistance from them.
Help Desk Services
September 21, 2021
David Bolt discussed how the TSG Help Desk supports our interviewing teams, the resources available for support, and the future of Help Desk support.
QC Project Considerations
June 14, 2021
This session will discuss a variety of issues for projects to consider, including budgeting for QC, selecting the material to evaluate, alternative verification methods, handling possible falsification, and IRB issues related to QC.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
QC Measuring and Modifying Interviewer Behavior
May 20, 2021
This session will show how we measure interviewer behavior, adherence to standardized interview protocols, and how we provide evaluation feedback and training to interviewers.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
QC Technical Systems & Tools
May 6, 2021
This session will introduce the technical systems and quality control tools used for recording interviews, completing evaluations and verifications, and reporting QC results.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
QC Overview
April 19, 2021
This session will introduce you to the QC Implementation Team, quality control philosophy, and will provide an overview of quality control processes for interviewer-administered data collection at SRO.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Recording
Understanding Interviewer Attrition
August 14, 2018
Presented by Grant Benson and Sharon Parker, DCO
Defining attrition and how it’s measured, as well as look at interviewer attrition over time.
Interviewer Recruitment
September 18, 2018
Presented by Vivienne Outlaw and Ken Szmigiel, DCO
In this session, members of the DCO recruitment team described the interviewer recruitment process and challenges to identifying qualified applicants who will be successful in the interviewing position.
Résumé Review to Predict Hiring and Performance
October 2, 2018
Presented by Carlos Macuada and Grant Benson, DCO
This session provided a description of a current text analytics initiative to determine how we might be able to better use résumé information to identify successful interviewers, as well as provided an opportunity to discuss future directions. Also, preliminary results of the 2018 SRO Interviewer Satisfaction Survey were reviewed.
Screening Questions, Interviewer Pay, and Interviewer Attrition
November 27, 2018
Presented by Sharon Simonton and Grant Benson, DCO
This session presented analyses of interviewer attrition across projects, as well as discuss future directions for analysis and intervention.
DMSS Survey Weights
March 28, 2017
This session provided basic definitions and explanations of weighting, including sampling weights, non-response adjustments, and trimming and post-stratification procedures. It illustrated with a project-specific example and explained how (unexpected) changes in the data collection protocol can affect the weighting procedure.
DMSS SRO Statistical Vocabulary
March 13, 2017
A glossary of sampling related terms was presented. This session was used to clarify and unify the understanding of statistical concepts commonly used in SRO’s daily work. Our intention was to keep updating SRO’s statistical glossary and turn it into a resource for SRO that would be available online.
DMSS Intro to Statistics
November 14, 2016
DMSS Dashboards and Reporting
September 2016