iGeneration Survey

Survey Method

This research aimed to gather the attitudes and opinions from a random sample of West Australians aged 18 to 30, in order to assess their perceptions towards a number of important social issues and how they generally view life in Australia as a young adult. The survey was completed as a random telephone survey, using Patterson Market Research’s in-house CATI resources. All interviewers were experienced IQCA trained staff, who worked under supervision. A copy of the questionnaire can be found here.

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Sampling Procedure

Patterson Market Research has developed a two-stage random selection process and call-back program to ensure that the survey methodology as accurately as possible reflects the true population profile, not merely those components of it which are more readily contactable. That program involves a random selection of households, then, importantly, a random selection of the target respondent within that household, and then initiates a call-back program that maximises the opportunity of interviewing the more mobile members of the community. That two-phase random dial and call-back is summarised as follows:

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  • Initial telephone sampling from the “white pages on disk”.

  • Up to three calls are made to unanswered numbers after a minimum of two hours has elapsed) to give heightened opportunity for more mobile (and smaller households) to be included in the survey. In connection with this, answering machines are treated as a “non answer” and are called back over subsequent days, with a message to contact ourselves being the last resort. Engaged numbers are called back on 15 minute intervals in an attempt to secure an interview.

  • Once contact is made with a household, a random selection of respondent is made (generally based on the “birthday” method), and if the nominated person is not available, up to two further calls are made to appointment in an effort to interview with that randomly selected individual.

  • Substitutions from within a household are only accepted if the nominated person will be continuously away from the home for the full duration of the survey.

  • Work sessions are spread over several time periods and days to maximise the opportunity of catching shift workers or the socially very active.

  • We are prepared to make multiple calls to a respondent who agrees to take part in the survey to arrive at a time at which the survey may be conducted at minimum inconvenience to them. The above procedure has been developed for Patterson Market Research’s fortnightly opinion poll program, and we believe provides the most accurate and effective reflection of the population profile possible. However, some limited “Snowballing” from randomly selected respondents was permitted and the sample was boosted with respondents from the target age groups generated from our random dial omnibus service, Flashpoll. Only 29% of the final sample was made up of snowball and recent Omnibus participants.

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Sample Size and Survey Accuracy

A total of 500 interviews were completed with target respondents. A sample of this size provides a maximum survey error of ±4.4% at the 95% confidence level. This means we can be 95% sure that the true result lies between a range of minus 4.4% and plus 4.4% of the survey result. There were also sub-quotas based on location, gender and age. A total of 375 interviews were completed with 18 to 30 year olds living in the metropolitan area. The survey error for this sample is ±5.1%. The remaining 125 interviews were with country respondents and the maximum survey error for this sub-group is ±8.8%. Half of the sample was male and half female. In addition an even proportion of interviews was aimed for among “younger” (18 to 24 years) and “older” (25 to 30 years) people. The survey error associated with gender and age based results is ±6.2%.

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Data Analysis

Results have been post-weighted to reflect the population profile of West Australians aged 18 to 30. The statistics used for the weighting process are based on gender, age and location profiles as sourced from the 2001 ABS Census information. Data analysis was completed using SurveyCraft and the resultant data tables can be viewed in Appendix B of the report.

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iGeneration Report

The report has been published and may be viewed here.

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