The accuracy of surveys and polls have been a hot topic in the U.S. over the last year. National Research Center, Inc. (NRC) focuses on providing highly thorough and scientific methods of qualitative and quantitative survey research to our clients who depend on reliable numbers to make good decisions for their communities. NRC Senior Research Associate Laurie Urban explains how NRC collects scientific and representative opinion data.
We recommend mail surveys, as address-based sampling provides the most inclusive kind of list you can have, which guarantees that the list is a representation of the community’s population. In addition to the mailed survey, NRC flagship surveys like The National Citizen Survey ™ (The NCS ™) also have an online component that is open to everyone in the community who wants to participate in the survey.
We randomly select from households within the city limits to send the survey to. Doing this ensures an equal likelihood that anyone can receive the survey, to remove any bias in the sample.
When the data is collected from the survey respondents, we will adjust the demographics (e.g., age, gender, etc.) to be reflective of the community’s entire population. This is a best practice in survey research to adjust for potential non-response bias and ensure that the demographics of the sample reflect the overall population as described by the U.S. Census.
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