34 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey American Time Use Survey

I

n the early 1990s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, the Bureau) began exploring the

feasibility of conducting a new survey to

measure how Americans spend their time. The

primary purposes of the survey were (and still

are) to improve estimates of time spent in

nonmarket activities (for example, child care) and

in market-related work and to provide data on a

variety of quality-of-life indices beyond income

and earnings. In 1998, a BLS working group developed specifications for the American Time

Use Survey and began pretesting the questionnaire through a series of cognitive studies that

investigated how respondents understood and

interpreted the survey’s concepts and questions. Today, the Bureau continues developing

and testing the survey, with full production

scheduled for calendar year 2003.

Historical background

The application of cognitive psychology to survey methods is motivated by the need to solve

practical problems associated with questionnaires.1 The Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology movement traces its beginnings to a

1980 U.S. conference that explored the implications of memory and recall on the quality of data

in the National Crime Survey. Following that conference, several hypotheses were generated to

test cognitive methods for improving recall of

victimization, and the results were incorporated

into the redesign of the National Crime Survey.

Shortly thereafter, in 1981, the Census Bureau

opened the Center for Survey Methods Research,

and in 1983, the first advanced seminar on the cognitive aspects of survey methodology (CASM I) was

held in St. Michaels, Maryland.2 The seminar

brought together cognitive psychologists and

survey practitioners in a deliberate effort to encourage interdisciplinary research into how the

cognitive aspects of recall, comprehension, and

judgment affect responses to a survey.3 In 1985,

the National Center for Health Statistics opened

the Questionnaire Design Research Lab, which began routine testing of data collection instruments.

From 1986 to 1993, the CensusBureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics collaborated on cognitive

research to support the Current Population Survey (CPS) redesign and conducted studies that

helped inform the Office of Management and

Budget’s Directive 15, the Government standard

for collecting information about race and ethnicity.

In 1988, the Bureau of Labor Statistics opened the

Collection Procedures Research Laboratory (now

the Behavioral Science Research Center) to foster

interdisciplinary research to improve the quality

of data collected and published by the Bureau.4

This article describes the findings from a series of cognitive studies that were conducted

as part of the American Time Use Survey’s development.

The American Time Use Survey:

cognitive pretesting

Lisa K. Schwartz

Lisa K. Schwartz is a

research psychologist

and Associate

Program Manager of

the American Time

Use Survey, Division of

Labor Force Statistics,

Bureau of Labor

Statistics.

Cognitive pretesting of the American Time Use Survey

has resulted in several redesigns that disambiguated

the wording of a number of questions in the instrument;

further testing will ensure that the survey delivers

high-quality data on an ongoing basis
Monthly Labor Review February 2002 35

Overview of the survey

The questionnaire. As mentioned earlier, the BLS American

Time Use Survey is scheduled for full production in January

2003. National estimates are slated to be available in mid-2004.

Eligible respondents5 will be randomly selected from a subset

of households that recently completed their final (eighth) CPS

interview.6 All interviews will be conducted by the Census

Bureau, using computer-assisted telephone interviewing. The

primary focus of the interview will be on the respondent’s

previous day’s activities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to conduct about 2,000 interviews per month—or 24,000

annually—and production will be continual throughout the

year. The interview that will be conducted in 2003 will comprise several sections, described in exhibit 1.

Summary questions. The original specifications for the survey that were published in the National Research Council (NRC)

report and Monthly Labor Review articles did not include descriptions of summary questions.7 Shortly after the publication of those sources, the American Time Use Survey working

group designed a set of summary questions that asked respondents about four specific activities: child care, dependent care, paid work, and absences from home. In the fall and

winter of 2000, researchers completed Phase I pilot tests of the

summary questions. Cognitive interviews revealed a number

of problems resulting from respondents’ differing interpretations of the wording of questions.8 On the basis of these findings, the question on dependent care was dropped, and Phase

II tests began on a revised set of the remaining summary questions in the winter of 2000.

General testing methodology

Research contractors and psychologists in the BLS Office of

Survey Methods Research conducted the cognitive pretests

of the American Time Use Survey’s summary questions. Phase

1 testing relied on face-to-face mock time-use interviews, followed by intensive cognitive interviews.9 In full production,

however, the survey will be conducted by telephone. The use

of telephone interviewing methodology raises potential recall

issues that needed to be addressed in testing. Thus, in all

subsequent tests, the mock interviews were conducted by

phone. Respondents were tested at the Bureau and at other

research facilities. Researchers greeted respondents and then

phoned them from a separate room to conduct the interview.

Upon completion of the mock interview, respondents participated in a face-to-face intensive cognitive interview designed

to highlight recall and interpretation difficulties that could jeopardize the quality of the data collected.

Respondents were recruited through databases of research

participants, through advertisements in local newspapers, via

e-mail, and by word of mouth. Each respondent was paid to

participate in a single session that lasted approximately 1 hour.

Child care

Background and research objectives. To gain a more complete picture of who is caring for children and to identify the

activities that adults combine with child care, time spent in

secondary child care needs to be measured. Briefly, the concept of secondary child care recognizes a distinction between

two types of parental or caregiver activities. There are times

during which a parent or caregiver may be actively and directly engaged with a child. In a time-use interview, these primary child-care activities are reported in the diary. Examples

of respondents’ statements referencing activities that would

be classified as primary child care are “I was feeding my child,”

“I was reading to my child,” and “I was helping my child with

her homework.” There are other times during which a parent or

caregiver is indirectly involved with a child, such as when the

adult is engaged in some other activity, but is still mindful of,

and responsible for, the child. This state of being mindful of,

and responsible for, a child while engaged in some other, primary activity is termed secondary child care. The Bureau decided that it would be too burdensome to ask respondents,

upon each report of a primary activity, if they were also caring

for a child during that activity.10 Instead, the Bureau opted to

try to measure secondary child care with a summary question

administered upon completion of the diary. Questions about

secondary child care are restricted to care for children under

the age of 13.11

Preliminary development of a survey methodology for collecting information on secondary child care began in 2000.

Focus groups were conducted during which participants were

shown examples of the kinds of activities that the Bureau was

interested in capturing and were asked to provide their own

descriptors for those activities.12 Participants strongly suggested that the concept of secondary child care is not intuitively meaningful, because most parents would consider

those activities “just part of being a parent.” When asked,

“What would you call these kinds of activities?” focus group

participants suggested a number of phrases that could be used

to capture secondary child care. Their preferred phrase was

“taking care of,” followed by “looking after.” Participants also

offered the alternative phrase “in your care.” Upon reflection,

“taking care of” seemed to include a more active component

than was intended by the concept of secondary child care and

thus was not considered for further testing. The phrases “looking after” and “in your care” were tested in Study 1. Respondents were asked about their care for children who lived in their

household. Similar questions were then asked about the respondents’ care for children who were not a part of their household during the previous day. If respondents reported unpaid

care for nonhousehold children 12 years or younger, they were

asked to identify whether they were related to the children for
36 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey

 Exhibit 1. Structure of the American Time Use Survey

 Section number and title Description

1. CPS updates Information about the composition of the respondent’s household and the

respondent’s labor force status will be updated.

2. Additional background information Information on the employment status of the respondent’s spouse or unmarried

partner will be collected. Respondents will also be asked to report the age and sex

of each of their own children under 18 years who do not reside in the household.

3. Time-use component A 24-hour time diary will be collected. The reference period will begin at 4:00

A.M. on the day before the interview and end at 4:00 A.M. on the day of the

interview.1 The interview will be semistructured, using “conversational interviewing” to probe for detailed information needed for coding.2 Contextual information about where and with whom an activity occurred will be collected

for each activity, except for personal care activities (sleeping and grooming)

and those the respondent reports as “private.” Information about simultaneous

activities will not be collected.3

4. Summary questions Upon completion of the diary, respondents will be asked a series of summary

questions which elicit details about the previous day’s activities that may not

have been reported in the diary. Some summary questions also will be used to

collect information about activities that occurred outside the “yesterday” reference period. (These questions are described more fully in the text.)

 5. Additional CPS updates Information about employed respondents’ usual earnings and current industry,

occupation, and class of worker will be updated. Information on unemployed

respondents’ jobseeking activities will be collected. Information on school enrollment status will be collected for all respondents aged 15 to 45 years.

6. Modules After the first year of full production, the survey will include modules that will

collect detailed information about specific activities of interest to data users.

1

 Original plans called for a midnight-to-midnight diary. Canada,

New Zealand, and Eurostat all begin their diaries at 4:00 A.M., primarily because most people are asleep at that time. At midnight, respondents may still be doing activities that would be carried over

from the previous day.

2

 Conversational interviewing is a flexible interviewing style that

allows the interviewer to work with the respondent to ensure that the

respondent interprets the questions consistently. As regards the diary,

the conversational interviewing approach will allow respondents to use

their own language to reconstruct their previous day’s activities and will

permit interviewers to ask follow-up questions of a probing nature when

they are needed to disambiguate verbatim reports.

3

 The survey asks respondents to report their main activity at

any given time. The survey does not ask, “What else were you

doing?” for each activity, because (1) doing so was perceived to be

too burdensome in a telephone interview and (2) some respondents

could not accurately report a duration for their secondary or tertiary activities. (See L. Stinson, “Report on Cognitive Testing Phase

1: The American Time Use Survey Summary Questions” (Bureau of

Labor Statistics internal report, 2000).) Summary questions on child

care will be used to estimate time spent caring for a child while doing

other things. Further research will be conducted to examine whether

and how accurate data on simultaneous activities might be collected;

however, such data will not be collected during the first year of the

survey (2003).

whom they provided care. The alternative versions of the question are shown in exhibit 2. The primary goal of this project

was to determine whether there are important distinctions between the two expressions “looking after” and “in your care.”

Findings. In testing, the inclusion of a child-care summary

question added dramatically to estimates of time spent providing secondary child care.13 Across groups, respondents (n =

21)14 reported an average of 3:44 hours (that is, 3 hours and 44

minutes; SE = 0:53) engaged in secondary child-care activities.

This figure contrasts with 2:20 hours (SE = 0:22) engaged in

primary child-care activities. Respondents preferred the phrase

“in your care” to “looking after,” primarily because it suggested a more nurturing relationship between the parent or
Monthly Labor Review February 2002 37

Exhibit 2. Alternative versions of question on child care

Lead-in Now I’d like to talk with you in a little more detail about child care. Child care certainly includes active

things like feeding or playing with your children. But it also includes things that you could do even while

doing something else, like looking after them.

First question I’d like you to think back over your day yesterday. During any part of the day yesterday, were you

looking after [fill with names from household roster of children less than 13 years]?

Second question [If yes to first question] At which times or during which activities were you looking after [fill with names

from household roster of children less than 13 years]?

Lead-in Now I’d like to talk with you in a little more detail about child care. Child care certainly includes active

things like feeding or playing with your children. But it also includes times when children are in your care, even while you are doing other things.

First question I’d like you to think back over your day yesterday. During any part of the day yesterday, was/were [fill

with names from household roster of children less than 13 years] in your care?

Second question [If yes to first question] At which times or during which activities was/were [fill with names from house-

- hold roster of children less than 13 years in your care?

 Description Statement or

question

other caregiver and the child; further, those who did prefer “in

your care” reported significantly more time spent engaged in

secondary child care than did respondents who preferred

“looking after.”15 However, a confounding variable in the experimental design made it impossible to draw firm conclusions from this research: respondents with higher levels of education were disproportionately represented among those who

made up the “in your care” group. Another problem that emerged

was that respondents were inconsistent in their determination of

when child care could occur. Some respondents reported care

when they themselves were sleeping. Others reported care when

their children were sleeping. These individual differences in interpretation resulted in large differences in the estimates of time

spent providing secondary child care.

Second child-care study. A second study was conducted to

address the methodological limitations of the first one. Specifically, Study 2 attempted to control for some inconsistencies in response patterns by implementing rules that bound

the time during which secondary care could occur. Because

respondents inconsistently reported secondary care when

they themselves were asleep,16 it was decided that child care

would be defined to have occurred when, and only when, the

respondent and at least one child were awake. The implementation of these rules required interviewers to collect information about the times the first child woke and the last child went

to bed in order to bound the secondary-care period. This

approach is similar to one that was implemented in a 1998

Canadian time-use survey.17 Because respondents in Study 1

preferred the wording “in your care” to “looking after,” all

respondents in Study 2 (n = 16)18 were asked about times or

activities during which children who were 12 years or younger

were in their care. Respondents with lower levels of education were recruited for this study.

Findings. Participants in Study 2 were demographically similar to respondents who were in the “looking after” group in

Study 1; however, they reported significantly more time in secondary child care than did the latter respondents. Respondents reported an average of 36.9 activities in their time diaries

(SE = 3.2), of which 6 were primary child care (SE = 1.0). Time

spent in primary child care was an average of 2:23 hours (SE =

0:26). There were no statistically significant differences between respondents in Study 2 and either group of respondents in Study 1 with respect to the number of activities they

reported in their time diaries, the number of primary child-care

activities they reported, or the amount of time they spent providing primary child care. In response to the modified summary question administered in Study 2, respondents reported

an average of 13.3 (SE = 1.2) activities during which they were

providing secondary child care. Time spent in secondary child

care was an average of 5:32 hours (SE = 1:04). Despite their

educational similarity to respondents in the “looking after”

group in Study 1, respondents in Study 2 reported significantly more time spent in secondary child-care activities.19

Their reports were comparable to those obtained from respondents with significantly higher levels of education who constituted the “in your care” group in Study 1. Comparisons across

groups are summarized in table 1.

It is important to note that the direct comparisons of estimates of time spent in secondary child care are complicated by

the modifications to the summary question that were imple-
38 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey

mented in Study 2. That study bounded the period of care by

the time the first child under the age of 13 got up and the last

child under the age of 13 went to bed. These restrictions were

not imposed in Study 1.

These data, while not conclusive, shed some light on the

findings coming out of Study 1. The findings from Study 2

suggest that the expression “in your care” may be more

broadly interpreted than “looking after” and that this broader

interpretation is shared across respondents with different levels of educational attainment.20

Implications for the survey. Although some respondents

had difficulty remembering the times their children got up and

went to bed, bounding the child-care period in this manner

seems to be worthwhile. In the absence of a clearly defined

child-care period in Study 1, respondents varied widely in their

perceptions of when their parental responsibilities began and

ended. The effectiveness of the summary question on secondary child care will continue to be evaluated in an additional

cognitive test of the diary and summary questions, with results likely to be available in February 2002.

Work-related summary questions

Background and research objectives. The American Time

Use Survey will collect information about time spent working

both in the diary and by means of a series of summary questions. In testing, the diary successfully captured time spent at

work by individuals who “went to work.” For example, when

reporting about workdays, most respondents reported some

amount of time spent at home engaged in various activities

prior to going to work. They reported traveling to work, and

then they reported the time they started working and the time

they stopped. In response to a question designed to identify

non-work-related activities, respondents reported breaks of

15 minutes or longer that occurred during the workday, such

as lunch breaks or time spent carrying out personal errands. In

addition to recording those activities associated with being

“at a workplace,” the diary captured time spent engaged in

other work-related activities when respondents clearly specified that an activity constituted work. These activities may be

identified in response to interviewers’ probing for selected

activities. For example, interviewers were trained to probe reports of reading to determine whether the purpose of reading

was primarily work related or for personal interest. The use of

probes in these instances allowed an interviewer to identify

work-related activities accurately and ensured that such activities were coded appropriately. Work activities were also

identified through additional information volunteered by the

respondent. Some respondents volunteered additional information about activities that are not currently among those

selected to be probed. For example, one respondent reported

that a phone call made to a client was a “work” call. However,

in the absence of predetermined probes for telephone calls,

some work-related calls (and other activities) may not be recorded or coded accurately.

L. Stinson conducted a preliminary test of a question that

asked respondents to identify all activities for which they were

paid or for which they expected to be paid.21 This question succeeded in identifying informal income-generating activities, such

as making handicrafts that are sold on the side, but did not identify other work-related activities (that is, other than those reported in the diary), such as making business-related phone

calls, engaging in business-related paperwork, mailing packages,

or spending time working for one’s job on a computer. Thus, a

number of issues related to the collection of paid work and workrelated activities remained unresolved. The Bureau attempted to

address these issues through the use of additional time diary

probes and a series of summary questions. The purpose of Phase

II testing was to evaluate the effectiveness of these methodologies in addressing a number of issues:

1. Can the American Time Use Survey measure the amount

of time spent working by self-employed respondents,

telecommuters, and other individuals who work in nonstandard work environments or whose work hours are

staggered throughout the day?

Measuring the amount of time spent working by these individuals introduces two areas of concern. First, respondents

who “go to work” may have an easy time following instructions to omit from their reports the individual activities that

constitute their workday. They simply report the time they

started working and the time they stopped. In comparison,

individuals who do not “go to work” may have difficulty responding in this way; they may report individual activities

that make up their workday. If this is the case, then these

individuals face a more burdensome interview. Second, the

diary may underestimate the amount of time these respondTable 1. Results of testing child-care summary question

Mean SD SE Mean SD SE Mean SD SE

Primary child care (hours)................................ 2:16 1:27 0:27 2:23 1:57 0:35 2:23 1:40 0:26

Secondary child care (hours) ............................ 1:42 1:01 0:21 5:23 4:39 1:24 5:32 4:01 1:04

Study 1,

 Hours spent in child care “looking after” group

Study 1,

“in your care” group

Study 2,

“in your care” group
Monthly Labor Review February 2002 39

ents spend working, because interviewers will be unable to

use travel information (for example, “I went to work”) or location information (for example, “I was at work”) to help them

identify work activities.

2. For respondents with multiple jobs, can probes during

the collection of the time diary be used to identify for

which job an activity was undertaken, without unduly

burdening those respondents?

The Bureau is interested in coding work activities done for

a main job separately from activities done for a second or other

job. This classification scheme requires that multiple jobholders be able to report easily and accurately the job for which an

activity was performed.

3. Can the American Time Use Survey identify work activities done outside of standard work environments or outside of “normal work hours”?

Anecdotal evidence and data collected in the May 1997 CPS

suggest that some people bring work home with them and

work beyond their scheduled work hours. According to the

CPS data, more than 21 million persons did some work at home

for their main job. Also, more than half of the people who

worked at home were wage and salary workers who were not

“expressly paid for their time worked at home.”22 About 17

percent of the wage and salary workers who worked from home

were paid for their time. Self-employed workers, most of whom

had home-based businesses, made up the remainder of those

respondents who reported working from home.

Two work-related summary questions designed to address

the preceding issues were evaluated for effectiveness through

the use of cognitive interviewing techniques:

Lead-in: Because so much of our time is spent working,

I’d like to ask you a few questions to make sure that this

survey doesn’t miss any of your work activities.

Question 1: (Other than the times you said you were at

work) Were any of the (other) activities you mentioned

done for your job (or business)?

Question 1a [if yes to question 1]: Which ones?

Question 2: Were there any (other) activities that you were

paid for or expect to be paid for? [Read if necessary.

These would include things like crafts that you sell on

the side.]

Question 2a [if yes to question 2]: Which ones?

Findings. Thirty of 51 respondents23 reported in the time

diary that they engaged in at least one work activity. Respondents reported an average of 1.3 times during the day that they

were working, and they said they spent an average of 3:58

hours (SE = 0.32) engaged in activities during those work

blocks.24 In response to the first summary question, 32 of 51

respondents reported that they engaged in at least one activity which was done for their job or business. Respondents

reported an average of 2.7 activities performed for their job or

business, in which they spent an average of 2:39 hours (SE =

0.28). In the diary, multiple jobholders reported significantly

more time working than did self-employed workers or

freelancers (p < .04). Self-employed respondents and

freelancers reported significantly more time in activities done

for their jobs or businesses (and not also reported as work in

the diary) than did multiple jobholders (p < .02). No other differences between any of the groups were statistically significant. The data are presented in table 2.

Eight of 51 respondents reported at least one activity that

they performed for pay.25 Respondents who reported any activities for pay reported an average of 0.5 activity and spent an

average of 19 minutes engaged in such “income-generating”

activities. There were no statistical differences between groups

with respect to their reports of activities they engaged in for

pay. The relevant data are depicted in chart 1.

The cognitive interview revealed that respondents defined

activities that they engaged in for their job or business more

broadly than had been intended. They included work preparaTable 2. Hours spent in work and work-related activities

Time spent working, Time spent in work-related activities,

reported in time diary response to summary question

 Category of employment

Mean SD Mean SD

All workers ...................................... 3:58 0:32 2:39 0:28

Self-employed ....................................... 2:41 0:58 5:03 1:14

Multiple jobholders .................................. 7:19 0:56 0:34 0:17

Telecommuters ...................................... 4:57 1:07 1:54 0:51

Salaried workers .................................... 2:46 1:21 1:15 0:31

Freelancers .......................................... 1:47 0:59 4:07 1:11

1 Salaried workers were interviewed on Monday about Sunday; they reported about work they brought home with them, not about a full workday.
40 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey

tion activities, such as ironing clothes, and networking or

other relationship-building activities in their reports. Similarly,

respondents interpreted activities for which one is paid or

expects to be paid more broadly than had been intended. Some

respondents even included income-generating activities, such

as investment activities and playing the lottery.

Implications for the survey. The work-related summary

questions are undergoing revision and further testing. On the

basis of the findings from cognitive testing, the first question

has been reworded as follows to clarify the kinds of activities

that should be excluded from respondents’ reports: “(You

told me about your work activities yesterday.) Were any of

the (other) activities you mentioned done for your job (or

business)? Please do not include getting ready for work or

commuting.” The first two parenthetical interpolations are

used for respondents who report work activities in their time

diaries. The third is used for self-employed respondents. The

second summary question about income-generating activities also has been reworded and is being tested. The new

version, which attempts to further narrow the scope of activities respondents report, reads, “Of all the activities you mentioned, which were done as part of your job? Please do not

include getting ready for work or commuting.” To ensure that

respondents report income-generating activities beyond

crafts that are sold on the side, the original clarification to a

respondent that “These could include things like crafts that

you sell on the side” was omitted. A stipulation to exclude

reports of paid time off was added.26 The revised question

asks, “Were there any activities that you were paid for or will

be paid for? Please do not include any paid time off.” The

results from the next round of testing may be available by

February 2002.

Absences from home

Background and research objectives. American Time Use

Survey respondents will be contacted at home by telephone

on a designated interviewing day and will asked to provide

detailed information about their activities the previous day

(the reference day). Bounding the reference period this way

reduces the chance that memory deficits will interfere with

accurate reports.27 However, missed interviews are a potential

problem with this collection methodology, because the inability to reach a respondent on a specific day may be related to

the respondent’s activities on the reference day.

To illustrate, suppose that a respondent’s designated interview day is Tuesday, March 6 (to collect information about

activities that occurred on Monday, March 5), but she misses

her interview because she is vacationing out of town.28 Suppose further that the respondent is contacted on her 2nd designated day, Tuesday, March 13th, and reports about activities from her 2nd reference day, Monday, March 12th. The

report from this completed interview might have differed substantially from the (missed) report on her 1st reference day

(that is, while she was vacationing), had it been possible to

contact her on March 6th.

Because interviewers cannot reach people by phone when

Recorded in time diary Done for job Done for pay Total time in market activities

Self-employed

Multiple jobholder

Telecommuter

Salaried worker

Freelancer

All workers

Chart 1. Time spent at work, in work-related activities, and in other activities done for pay

Length of time 

(hours:minutes)

Length of time 

(hours:minutes)

9:36

8:24

7:12

6:00

4:48

3:36

1:12

0:00

2:24

9:36

8:24

7:12

6:00

4:48

3:36

1:12

0:00

2:24
Monthly Labor Review February 2002 41

they are traveling, the survey may underestimate activities

that respondents engage in when they are away from home

and overestimate the time they spend on activities at home.

Therefore, it is important to have a measure of this potential

bias. To that end, the survey needs to collect normative data

on the number of extended absences from home. The survey

will not be able to collect information about the kinds of activities respondents engage in when they are on an extended

absence from home. However, obtaining some information

about the purpose of trips away from home may guide future

research on how to minimize the bias. For example, if the majority of absences from home in a given month are for business

travel, workdays could be weighted upwards to account for

missed days.

The Bureau developed a series of summary questions to

collect information about survey respondents’ extended absences from home. The effectiveness of these questions as

regards collecting information about activities outside of the

1-day reference period was tested by means of cognitive interview techniques. The primary objectives of this study were (1)

to evaluate the accuracy with which respondents could recall

the month they were absent from home and the duration of the

trips they took, (2) to examine the impact of length of recall on

respondents’ reports, and (3) to identify meaningful categories into which the purposes of a trip could be classified. Exhibit 3 shows the questions related to trips away from home

that were tested in the study.

The BLS Office of Field Operations provided respondents

for this test (n = 22). To help evaluate the accuracy of the

responses, the Office verified the month and duration of respondents’ work-related trips.

Findings. The ease and accuracy with which respondents

could recall information about their trips varied with the length

of the recall period and the frequency with which the respondent traveled. Sixty-four percent of trips that were verified were

accurate in terms of the month they occurred. Nine trips appeared on respondents’ records, but were omitted from their

reports, and seven trips were reported for which no record

existed. Errors increased as the recall period increased. Thirtyone percent of trips that were verified were accurate in terms of

their duration. However, when the duration of a trip was reported inaccurately, the report was usually off by only 1 day.

Respondents did not have any difficulty labeling trip scenarios

by purpose and suggested that categories to capture the purpose of business trips, vacation or leisure travel, community

service or volunteer trips, career development trips, emergency

travel, and multipurpose trips be included as response options. Respondents could easily identify the main purpose of

their trips, but they found questions about “other” purposes

intrusive and difficult to answer.

Implications for the survey. On the basis of the findings from

the study, modifications were made to the summary questions

about absences from home. To assuage concerns that respondents would need to report about trips away from home in as

much detail as is required in the time diary, midway through

testing the introduction to the survey was revised to specify

 Exhibit 3. Questions dealing with trips away from home

 Description

Lead-in Thanks for telling me about what you did yesterday. Because this survey focuses on what people did

yesterday, the picture that we get of how people spend their time is incomplete. In particular, we get very little

information about what people do when they travel, even though we know that activities often change when

people travel. To help us get a more accurate picture of how you spend your time, I’d like to ask you a few

very general questions about times when you may have been away from home.

Q 1 In the month of [preceding month], how many times were you away from home for 2 or more consecutive nights?

Q 2 (Let’s start with the most recent of those trips.) What was the main purpose of that (most recent) trip?1

Q 3 Any other purpose?

Q 4 How many days were you away to/for [insert main purpose]?

Q 5 How many days were you away to/for [insert other purpose]?

Statement or

question

1

 Text in parentheses is used with respondents who went on more than one trip the preceding month.
42 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey

that only general information is needed about business, vacations, and other types of trips. Further, only information on

the main purpose of trips will be collected, and the response

categories will include a multipurpose option. To facilitate recall, respondents will not be asked about trips that occurred

more than 2 months ago.

Current projects and future directions

A cognitive test of the time diary and all three summary questions is currently underway. The primary objective of this test

is to evaluate the overall flow of the interview, with particular

attention paid to the order in which the summary questions

are asked. The study will also assess the cognitive difficulty

associated with completing the time-use interview and respondents’ perceptions of the survey topic’s intrusiveness. Fortyfive individuals will participate in the study. The sample will

include young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 years and

adults aged 65 years and older, in order to ensure that the

survey content is meaningful to both age groups and that

their activities can be coded accurately with the use of the

survey’s coding lexicon. Results from this test likely will be

available in February 2002.

A separate test related to how travel is best coded is scheduled to begin in January 2002 (n = 20). The traditional way of

measuring travel-related behavior is through the use of diaries

in which respondents record their trips,29 together with some

contextual information. The 1954 travel diary of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, predecessor to the Federal Highway

Administration, captured the origin and destination of a trip,

the mode of travel, the duration of each travel episode, the

purpose of the trip, the number of occupants in the vehicle,

and details about parking. According to K. W. Axhausen, this

type of diary takes a stage-based approach to recording travel

activities.30 The stage-based approach essentially asks respondents, “Where did you stop next?” and “Why did you

stop there?” Axhausen notes that a stage-based travel diary

has been extremely influential in the United States and has

served as the reference standard for all federally funded travel

projects. In comparison, time-use diaries capture trips as they

occur within the context of all other daily activities. Much of

the same contextual information is offered by respondents

when describing travel in the time-use diary (for example, they

cite the duration of the trip and its origin and destination) or is

derived from other information collected in that kind of diary

(for example, respondents will be asked, “Who accompanied

you?” for activities that take place outside of the respondents’

or someone else’s home).31 This probe will provide information about the number of occupants in a vehicle. Similarly, in

the American Time Use Survey, travel will be coded according to

the purpose of each trip, thereby providing an additional piece

of information traditionally collected in travel surveys. The

time-use diary may better match the way respondents think

of their daily activities, which, if true, means that they will be

less likely to forget relatively unimportant short trips that

tend to be underreported in traditional travel diaries.32 Thus,

time-use surveys may be an excellent source of travel data

and may do a better job of capturing trips of short duration

than do traditional travel surveys. In a recent review of several time-use studies, A. S. Harvey found that travel accounts

for about 19 percent of all activities reported and that individuals report an average of 4.3 trips per day.33

Because the American Time Use Survey is likely to provide

important data about travel and the context in which travel

occurs, and because a high percentage of activities reported

are likely to be travel activities, it is crucial that the Survey

successfully measure and accurately code travel. In a series of

tests designed to evaluate the survey’s coding lexicon, it became apparent that coding travel was problematic.34 In January 2001, the Bureau tested the effectiveness of collecting

additional information about travel episodes to enhance the

reliability of coding. Results from this test are scheduled to be

available in February 2002.

A number of survey methodologists and economists have

raised concerns that the Bureau does not plan to include a

diary with the advance materials for the survey.35 In response

to their concerns, a split-panel test of the effects of advance

diaries on response rates and data quality is scheduled to

begin in March 2002 (n = 550). A number of important issues

will be addressed in this test. First, the Bureau is interested in

the effects of advance diaries on contact, response, and refusal rates. The Bureau is concerned that if respondents

choose to use the advance diaries, they may not wish to complete the telephone interview, which is necessary to collect

detailed descriptions of activities that will permit consistent

and accurate coding. Furthermore, the use of paper diaries as

the principal mode of data collection is cost prohibitive, primarily because at least one personal visit is needed to drop off

the diary and explain the level of detail that the respondent

needs to record. Even if the diary were delivered by mail, the

costs of mailing out diaries, reminder cards, and return postage would be higher than the cost of telephone interviews.

Second, the Bureau is interested in evaluating the effects of

the use of advance diaries on data quality. To this end, the test

will include measures of the number and variety of activities

reported during the telephone interview by respondents who

use the advance diary, compared with those who do not. The

study will also measure the number of gaps in respondents’

time-use diaries (that is, periods for which they cannot recall a

primary activity) and the frequency with which they report

time anchors.36 Last, the Bureau is interested in measuring the

operational costs associated with advance diaries. The results

from this study are slated to be available in August 2002.

A MAJOR OUTCOME OF THE COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF SURVEY METHODS

MOVEMENT was the establishment of cognitive research laborato-
Monthly Labor Review February 2002 43

ries at the Bureau of the Census, the National Center for Health

Statistics, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The work of

researchers in these laboratories has contributed to the development and redesign of survey questionnaires, notably

for household and other demographic surveys. As a result,

more attention has been paid to how respondents think about

the content of surveys and to the processes respondents

must go through in responding to survey questions. This

approach to questionnaire design has been integrated into

the development of the American Time Use Survey and should

help it avoid the pitfalls of ambiguous wording of questions.

Continued testing will further refine its operations and help

ensure that the survey delivers high-quality data once it is in

full production. 

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Paul Chen, Scott Fricker, Jayme Gortman, and Siri

Lynn assisted with the studies described in this article. Steve Miller

provided statistical guidance. Diane Herz, Marilyn Manser, Bill

Mockovak, and Tom Nardone reviewed the manuscript. The article was

presented as a paper to the Federal Economics Statistics Advisory Committee on December 14, 2001. The committee is sponsored jointly by

the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and

the Bureau of the Census.

1

 M. Sirken, “The Role of a Cognitive Laboratory in a Statistical

Agency,” in Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology, Seminar

on Quality of Federal Data, Statistical Policy Working Paper 20 (U.S.

Office of Management and Budget, 1991), pp. 268–77.

2 CASM II was held in Charlotteville, Virginia, in 1997.

3

 T. Jabine, M. Straf, J. Tanur, and R. Tourangeau (eds.), Cognitive

Aspects of Survey Methodology: Building a Bridge between Disciplines

(Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 1984).

4

 C. Dippo and D. Herrmann, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics

Collection Procedures Research Laboratory: Accomplishments and Future Directions,” in Federal Committee, Quality of Federal Data, pp.

253–67.

5

 All civilian noninstitutionalized household members aged 15 years

or older are eligible for the survey.

6

 The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of about

60,000 households that provides data on the Nation’s labor force. Households are interviewed for 4 consecutive months, are out of the sample

for the next 8 months, and then are interviewed again for 4 consecutive

months.

7

 Summary questions may be considered “hindsight” questions. Respondents are directed to refer back to the activities they just reported

in their diaries and are asked to provide additional details about some of

those activities. For example, G. Haraldsen suggests using summary questions to evaluate respondents’ subjective experiences of time (for instance, “Were any of the activities that you reported ones that you

would not have done had you not been obliged to?”). (See G. Haraldsen,

“Framework for Data Collection on Time-Use: Relating Objectives,

Design and Resources,” paper presented at the Expert Group Meeting

on Methods for Conducting Time Use Surveys, United Nations Secretariat, Statistics Division, New York, October 23–27, 2000. By contrast, stylized questions are similar to survey questions that ask respondents to indicate how much time they spent, or how often they engaged,

in various activities over a predetermined reference period.

8

 L. Stinson, “Report on Cognitive Testing Phase 1: The American

Time Use Survey Summary Questions” (Bureau of Labor Statistics internal report, 2000).

9

 Cognitive interviews are intensive one-on-one structured interviews designed to gather information about respondents’ thought processes as they answer survey questions. Cognitive interviews may reveal

information about the memory, language, and decisionmaking processes

that underlie people’s responses to surveys.

10 G. Haraldsen, “Framework for Data Collection,” notes that paper

diaries are better suited to the collection of secondary activities than are

recall interviews.

11 Participants in a cognitive test of the child-care summary questions were asked whether the age cutoff (12 years and younger) made

sense to them. Although some parents suggested a lower or a higher

cutoff, most agreed that the proposed age cutoff made sense. Parents

said that 13 years is a “real turning point,” because children become

teenagers and are ready to assume more responsibility. Most parents

agreed that teenagers require a different kind of supervision than is

implied by a question about times when children are in their care.

12 Stinson, “Report on Cognitive Testing.”

13 Secondary child care is, by definition, an activity that takes place

simultaneously with another activity. Therefore, secondary child care

could be reported as concurrent with a primary child-care activity. For

example, a respondent could report looking after a child while reading to

that child. When secondary child care was reported as concurrent with

primary child care, the time was attributed to the primary activity only

and was included in estimates of primary child care.

14 One respondent in the “looking after” group did not report any

time spent in secondary child care.

15 Respondents who were asked about time spent “looking after”

children reported 1:42 hours (SE = 0:21) spent providing secondary child

care. In comparison, respondents in the “in your care” group reported

5:23 hours (SE = 1:24) spent. These differences were statistically significant, with t(18) = –2.551 (p < .03).

16 According to the survey definition, child care could occur during

either a parent’s or child’s daytime nap.

17 In that survey, Statistics Canada collected data on the times that

children woke up and went to bed on the designated reporting day. The

survey then asked about the times that respondents were looking after

their children. (See Overview of the Time Use of Canadians in 1998

General Social Survey, catalogue no. 12F0080XIE (Ottawa, ON, Statistics

Canada, 1998); on the Internet at http://www.statcan.ca.

18 Data from one respondent were excluded from analyses because

the repondent did not engage in any primary or secondary child care

activities the previous day.

19 t(23) = –3.602 (p < .01).

20 In Study 1, respondents provided their own definitions for these
44 Monthly Labor Review February 2002

American Time Use Survey

terms. Their responses indicated that “looking after” was narrowly

interpreted as “within sight,” whereas “in your care” was broadly interpreted as “caring and being responsible for” a child.

21 Stinson, “Report on Cognitive Testing.”

22 “Work at home in 1997,” Current Population Survey press release USDS 98–93, available at http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/

homey.nws.htm.

23 Eleven self-employed respondents, 10 multiple jobholders, 12

telecommuters, 8 salaried workers, and 10 freelancers participated in

this test.

24 The American Time Use Survey does not ask respondents to

report the individual activities that make up their workday. Instead,

respondents are asked to report the time they started work and the time

they stopped. These blocks of time include many separate work (and

nonwork) activities.

25 All 51 respondents were asked to identify activities that they performed for pay. Respondents were instructed to exclude previously reported job-related activities. Estimates of activities performed for pay do

not include work activities reported in the diary or activities identified as

job related in response to the first summary question, “Were any of the

(other) activities you mentioned done for your job (or business)?” Estimates of activities performed for pay only include activities identified in

response to the summary question, “Were there any (other) activities

that you were paid for or expect to be paid for? [Read if necessary: These

could include things like crafts that you sell on the side].”

26 During testing, one respondent was interviewed the day after she

had taken paid leave. In response to the question, “Were there any

activities that you were paid for or expect to be paid for?” she said,

“Well, all of them. I took a paid day off.”

27 The temporally inaccurate placement of recalled events results

in telescoping. In forward telescoping, events that occurred prior to a

reference period are erroneously brought forward and included in it.

Backward telescoping involves pushing recent events back into a previous reference period. (See S. Sudman and N. Bradburn, Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Design (San Francisco,

Jossey-Bass, 1982).) Telescoping is used most often to explain over- and

underestimation in judgments involving the aggregation of individual occurrences for the purpose of producing a summary response (for example,

“Last month, how much did you spend eating out at restaurants?”).

However, because the American Time Use Survey diary asks about the

previous day’s individual activities in a step-by-step, chronological sequence, the effects of memory loss and telescoping bias are minimized.

28 The fielding period (that is, the length of time a case is active)

for the American Time Use Survey is 8 weeks. Respondents will be

assigned one eligible interviewing day per week to complete an interview about the previous day’s activities. They will be interviewed on

the same day of the week for up to 8 weeks.

29 Trips can be defined in various ways. A trip may be any movement from one address to another, any movement out from home

coupled with a return trip, or any movement beyond a predetermined

radius around the home.

30 K. W. Axhausen, Travel diaries: An annotated catalog, 2nd ed.

(Innsbruck, Austria, Institut für Strassenbau and Verkehrsplanung,

Leopold-Franzens-Universität, 1995).

31 Respondents are asked, “Who was in the room with you?” when

they are at their own or someone else’s home.

32 B. Noble, “Using Simple Time Use Surveys to Investigate

Travel,” paper presented at the International Conference on Transport Survey Quality and Innovation, Kruger National Park, South

Africa, August 2001.

33 A. S. Harvey, “Time-Space Diaries: Merging Traditions,” paper

presented at the International Conference on Transport Survey Quality and Innovation, Kruger National Park, South Africa, August 2001.

34 D. Herz, L. Schwartz, and T. Shelley, “Coding Activities in the

American Time Use Survey,” internal report (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001).

35 This issue was raised by council members at a June 2001 Federal

Economics Statistical Advisory Committee meeting and by participants in a separate brainstorming session on survey methods also held

in June 2001.

36 Time anchors are activities for which respondents are certain of

the time the activity started or stopped. These activities may be

landmark events around which the rest of the respondent’s day is

organized and are considered indicators of higher quality data. Time

anchors have important implications for how time relationships among

activities are calculated in the survey’s data collection instrument.