2010–11 MacroMonitor Survey Methodology
Questionnaire Design
The 2010–11 MacroMonitor questionnaire maintains a design that has remained consistent for more than 30 years to measure consumer attitudes, behaviors, and motivations about financial services. In 2010, Strategic Business Insights' (SBI's) Consumer Financial Decisions (CFD) group developed a draft questionnaire and submitted it to clients for suggested comments, deletions, and additions.
Knowledge Networks (KN) programmed the questionnaire to allow online participation. All questions in the final MacroMonitor questionnaire are closed end or limited open end. Respondents enter actual dollar amounts of their balances, actual numbers of household members, and actual numbers at other numerical questions.
Data Collection
Introduction
Knowledge Networks conducted the 2010–11 MacroMonitor survey on behalf of Strategic Business Insights' Consumer Financial Decisions group. It conducted the survey on the KnowledgePanel®.
Sample Definition
The survey consists of two household-level target populations. One is a general population sample of households headed by adults age 18 and older residing in the United States; the other is an oversample of affluent households—those households with a total household income of at least $100,000 or total assets (excluding the home) of at least $500,000.
To create the target population, Knowledge Networks randomly sampled households from its KnowledgePanel, a probability-based web panel that is representative of the United States. Individuals who completed the survey must be the primary decision maker for the household's financial activities or share the financial decisions with someone else in the household. KN asked individuals who were not active in the financial decisions to pass the survey to the decision makers in their household.
Field Period
Knowledge Networks pretested the online survey in June 2010 and conducted the main survey in June, July, and August 2010. The data collection field periods were as follows.
| Stage | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|
| Pretest | 9 June 2010 | 14 June 2010 |
| Main | 28 June 2010 | 24 August 2010 |
Participants completed the main survey in 164 minutes (median).
Sample Sizes and Survey-Completion Rates
The number of respondents sampled and participating in the survey and the survey completion rates are below.
Key Survey Response Statistics: Main Interview |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Invited | Completed | Completion Rate | |
| National Sample | 4955 | 2718 | 54.9% |
| Affluent Sample | 3460 | 1859 | 53.7% |
| Total | 8415 | 4577 | 54.4% |
Researchers at SBI considered 4374 of the 4577 completed surveys valid.
Survey-Cooperation Enhancements
In addition to taking some standard measures to enhance survey cooperation, Knowledge Networks took the following steps:
- Sent email reminders to nonresponders on day three of the field period
- Sent additional email reminders to nonresponders on 8 July, 15 July, 19 July, 23 July, 30 July, 5 August, 12 August, 16 August, and 20 August 2010
- Gave participants a cash-equivalent $20 for their participation
- Made participants eligible to win an in-kind prize through a monthly KN sweepstakes.
