UWSC News...

10/09 - UWSC staff to share expertise on behavior coding at the Workshop on Question Evaluation Methods

10/09 - UWSC to conduct research on enhancing participation in Biomarker Research in underrepresented populations

09/09 - Faculty Director, Nora Cate Schaeffer, to teach "Survey Methods for Social Research" Fall Semester 2009

08/09 - UWSC staff participate in UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health 50th Anniversary Symposium

08/09 - UW Badger Poll data featured in award-winning paper by LSC graduate students and professors

05/09 - UWSC staff participate in the annual IFD&TC (International Field Directors and Technologies Conference)

05/09 - UWSC staff participate in the 64th annual AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) Conference

04/09 - UWSC Associate Director, John Stevenson, is awarded the prestigious Mid-Career Award

01/09 - Vicki Lein joins the UWSC as a senior Project Director

10/09

UWSC Staff to share expertise on behavior coding at the Workshop on Question Evaluation Methods

Faculty Director, Nora Cate Schaeffer, will present at the upcoming Workshop in Question Evaluation Methods to be held October 21-23 and sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics and the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Schaeffer will be part of a panel assembled to discuss Behavior Coding. UWSC Survey Methodologist Jen Dykema will be chairing the session. Conference presenters will engage in an interdisciplinary and cross-method examination of methods used to develop questions.

For more information on the Workhop click here

10/09

UWSC to conduct research on enhancing participation in Biomarker Research in underrepresented populations

UWSC Survey Methodologist, Jen Dykema, and Project Director, Ken Croes, are partnering with Dorothy Edwards, Professor in Kinesiology and Occupational Therapy, and others on "Enhancing Participation of Underrepresented Groups in Biomarker Studies." This project is part of a core grant to the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR).

The project entails partnering with representatives of Wisconsin tribal and ethnic/racial minority groups in a study designed to identify and enhance participation in biomarker research. Biomarker research relies on the collection of bodily fluids such as blood or cerebrospinal fluid, tissue, functional or structural imaging. It is particularly important to engage tribal, immigrant and minority populations in these studies since these groups bear a disproportionate burden of chronic disease and disability. The failure to engage such groups in biomarker research actually serves to increase health disparity 'gaps' by failing to identify the causes of risk differences and mediating/moderating effects of environmental, socioeconomic and behavioral variables on health outcomes. Researchers will use a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach to identify and address the barriers to biomarker study participation. Using a mixed methods approach based on a health services utilization framework, community-academic research teams will examine barriers and facilitators to participation in biomarker research projects for Alzheimer's, pulmonary and cardiovascular disease and cancer. This framework, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior/Reasoned Action (TPB) and Andersen's health behavior mode (HBM), has been used to examine willingness to participate in cancer clinical trials. It focuses on the cognitive factors that effect behavioral intentions (the decision to participate).

The findings of these teams will serve to inform the development of culturally tailored educational materials that will be piloted to examine whether/how intent to participate in biomarker research can be measured. Our activities in whole are designed to bring visibility to and increase participation of minority and medically underserved individuals in biomarker studies.

09/09

Faculty Director, Nora Cate Schaeffer, to teach "Survey Methods for Social Research" Fall Semester 2009

Faculty Director, Nora Cate Schaeffer, is offering "Survey Methods for Social Research" this semester (Fall 2009/1020) on Wednesdays from 8:10 to 10:45. The course is about survey data and where they come from. The course examines the principle features of survey design and how they contribute to total survey error. Topics include: mode of interview, basic sampling concepts, effects of nonparticipation, issues in instrumentation, interviewing, and computer-assisted data collection. Most of the course is spent reviewing research that describes the effects of features of survey design on survey error.

For a copy of the syllabus click here

To visit Dr. Schaeffer's Home Page click here

08/09

UWSC staff participate in UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health 50th Anniversary Symposium

Kelly Elver, UWSC's Project Director in charge of the National Children's Study Waukesha Vanguard Call Center, recently participated in a panel discussion about the NCS Waukesha study, along with Waukesha PI's Dr. Maureen Durkin, Dr. Steven Leuthner, and NCS staff members Marie-Noel Sandoval, Katie Miller, and Liz Gall. Panelists shared their experiences in the local implementation of a national protocol, on the largest study of the effects of environment on the health of children ever undertaken. Kelly was pleased to be able to discuss the challenges and successes involved in helping to field such a large federal study with other researchers from the UW.

For a link to the program click here

08/09

UW Badger Poll data featured in award-winning paper by LSC graduate students and professors

LSC doctoral student Kajsa Dalrymple and professors Dominique Brossard, Dietram Schefeule and Al Gunther, along with graduate student Amy Brecker, win a Top 3 Faculty Paper Award by the Science Communication Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication for the paper "Getting citizens involved: How controversial science policy debates stimulates issue participation during a political campaign." The paper uses data from the UW Badger Poll, a statewide telephone survey. The award was delivered during the August, 2009 meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Convention in Boston.

To learn more about the UW Badger Poll Click here

05/09

UWSC staff participate in the annual IFD&TC (International Field Directors and Technologies Conference)

UWSC staff continued to provide a strong presence at the annual International Field Directors & Technologies Conference (IFD&TC) held in Delray Beach, Florida in May. A large group of UWSC actively participated and presented at the annual meeting (staff names appear in bold):

• Heidi Guyer, Nancy Gebler, Kerryann DiLoreto, Katie Lundeen, Frank Mierzwa, and Casey Tischner, "Spitting In Public: Collecting Biomarkers and Physical Measures"
• Lisa Klein, Data Quality Issues in Mixed-Mode Self-Administered Surveys"
• Lisa Klein and Christopher Huard, "Human-Based Versus Optical Scanning Methods of Data Entry"
• Wes Taylor, "Finding Waldo: Tracing Module Design and Use for Systematic Tracking Data Collection and Tracing Effort Evaluation"
• Eric White, "Remote Instrument Testing Using MS Server 2008 and Terminal Services (or Competing With the Cloud)"
• Eric White, "Ultra-Mobile PCs: Where Do They Fit in?"

To visit the International Field Director's & Technology Conference website click here

To view UWSC Staff presentations click here

05/09

UWSC staff participate in the 64th annual AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) Conference

A large group of UWSC staff presented at the annual meeting of the 2009 conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in Hollywood, Florida, on May 14-17. As in previous years, UWSC staff demonstrated their contributions to survey research methodology by delivering short courses and presenting papers and methodological briefs (staff names appear in bold):

• UWSC Director, Nora Cate Schaeffer, offered the short course "Introduction to Questionnaire Design"
• Kerryann DiLoreto, Kenneth D. Croes, and Jennifer Dykema, "Factors Predicting Participation in the Collection of Biological Measures in a Survey of Older Adults"
• Jennifer Dykema, Nora Cate Schaeffer, and Dana Garbarski, "The Effects of Different Question Structures on Interactional Indicators of Respondent and Interviewer Processing of Physical and Mental Health Questions"
• Kelly Elver, Jennifer Dykema, and John Stevenson, "Effects of Alternative Forms of Addressing Households on Response Rates and Costs in a Mail Survey."
• Dana Garbarski, Nora Cate Schaeffer, and Jennifer Dykema, "Using Verbal and Paralinguistic Behaviors to Explain Variation in Self-Reported Health Items"
• John Stevenson, Jennifer Dykema, Brendan Day, Vence Bonham, and Sherrill Sellers, "The Use of Advance Contact, Monetary Incentives, and Lotteries to Increase Response Rates in a Web Survey of Physicians."

To visit the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) click here

To view UWSC Staff presentations click here

04/09

UWSC Associate Director, John Stevenson, is awarded the prestigious Mid-Career Award

Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, announced the winners of the 2008-09 College of Letters and Science Academic Staff Excellence Awards. John Stevenson, associate director, UW Survey Center received the Mid-Career award. These awards are given to recognize the contributions of L&S academic staff to the college. Recipients were honored at special ceremony.

John has served the University of Wisconsin and the UW Survey Center for 15 years -- first as a project director, and, for the past 10 years, as the Associate Director of the Survey Center. During this time, he has taken an active role in improving the overall value the UW Survey Center brings to the University of Wisconsin and the survey research community more generally. In particular he has been instrumental in:

• Making the UW Survey Center a national leader in the field of data collection.
• Increasing the awareness of the Survey Center and its vast capabilities among researchers whose work could benefit from UWSC's knowledge and expertise.
• Increasing not only the amount of work done to serve the university community, but also increasing the range and complexity of work offered to better serve researchers, collaborators, and colleagues.
• Developing the UW Survey Center beyond just data collection into a research center that conducts internal methodological research and is known for its innovation.
• Increasing the professionalization of UWSC staff by supporting professional development and improving internal procedures and continuous training and renewal of skills.
• Coordinating the variety of social science research services at UW-Madison to better serve the faculty and staff.
• Sharing the expertise and experience UWSC has throughout the college to faculty, staff, and students.
• Using UWSC's experience and knowledge to increase learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.
• Making time to serve the university community through service on key University committees, particularly the Institutional Review Board (IRB) in Letters & Science.
• Increasing UWSC's level of expertise, reputation, and service to the profession by active membership and leadership in the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations (ASRO), the International Field Directors and Technology Conference (IFD&TC), and the American Association for Public Opinion Quarterly (AAPOR).

01/09

Vicki Lein joins the UWSC as a senior Project Director

Vicki Lein has joined UWSC as a senior Project Director. She brings decades of experience in conducting research in the social sciences.

Prior to joining UWSC, Vicki worked as a Research Scientist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, where she conducted research on business decision making, market-based incentives programs, and innovation. In addition to her experience with survey methods such as mail surveys, she has conducted focus groups and in-depth personal interviews.

We are excited to have Vicki as a member of our team and look forward to her contributions.