DOI: 10.7280/d1qp47
title: Annual Survey of Orange County 1988

description: The theme of the survey is "Orange County: A Change of Course."
 The 1988 Orange County Annual Survey examines previous trends and explore
 new topics. The survey is designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of
 county issues. The sample size is 1,003 Orange County adult
 residents.Online data analysis & additional documentation in Link
 below.
description: The Orange county Annual Survey was directed by Mark Baldassare, a
 professor of social ecology at UC Irvine. For the survey, 1,003 adult
 Orange County residents were interviewed by telephone Sept. 6 to 22. In
 Orange County, where more than 97 percent of households have telephones,
 this method of interview gives highly representative data.
 
 Interviewing was conducted on weekend days and weekdaynights, using a
 random sample of 4,500 listed and unlisted telephone numbers. These
 telephone numbers were generated by computer from a list of working blocks
 of telephone exchanges. The telephone sample was generated by Pijacki and
 Associates of Shoreham, N.Y. The field work was conducted at the Center
 for Survey Research by UCI's Public Policy Research Organization.
 
 Of the telephone numbers called, 22 percent resulted in completed
 interviews and 13 percent were refusals. The completion rate for the
 survey (completions divided by completions plus refusals) was 62 percent.
 
 Other telephone outcomes included the following: 21 percent disconnected
 numbers; 15 percent businesses and government agencies; 7 percent
 persistent no answer; 2 percent persistent telephone answering machines; 2
 percent computer lines; and 2 percent persistently unavailable
 respondents. Three percent were not completed because of language
 problems, including Spanish and other non-English speaking households, and
 hearing impairment.
 
 Within a household, respondents were chosen for interview using the
 Troldahl-Carter method. This method randomly selects a household member
 from a grid that includes information on the number of adult household
 members and the number of adult men in the household.
 
 Each interview contained 90 questions and took an average of 17 minutes to
 complete. Length of interview ranged from a low of 10 minutes to a high of
 30 minutes.
 
 The surveys were designed in three stages over several months. In the
 first stage, UCI undergraduate students conducted face-to-face interviews
 on Orange county topics with randomly selected adult residents. The second
 stage involved feedback on questions and topics from the annual
 survey's steering Committee, Advisory committee and colleagues. The
 final stage included pre-tests, followed by final revisions of the
 questions.
 
 The interview began with questions about housing, consumer confidence and
 perceptions of life in Orange County. These were followed by questions on
 growth, traffic and transportation issues. Later in the interview, we
 turned to the topics of charities, public education and child care. The
 conclusion of the survey was devoted to questions about work and commuting
 patterns, personal characteristics, household status and political
 views.The survey's validity was checked by comparing the
 sample's characteristics to available information on Orange
 County's population. We compared the 1987 survey results to the 1980
 U. S. Census, previous annual surveys and other recent survey data. Age,
 income and other demographic features of our sample were comparable with
 those noted in other studies.For data analyses, we statistically weighted
 the sample to represent the actual regional distribution of Orange County
 residents.
 
 Other efforts were made to correct for possible errors in the process of
 interviewing and data processing. Approximately 10 percent of the
 completed interviews were verified through callbacks. All questionnaires
 were checked by the interviewer supervisor immediately after completion.
 Finally, keypunched data were double-checked for all cases in the survey
 sample.The sampling error for this survey is +/-3 percent at the 95
 percent confidence level. This means that 95 times out of 100, the results
 will be within 3 percentage pointsof what they would be if all adults in
 Orange county were interviewed. The sampling error for any subgroup would
 be larger.
 
 Sampling error is just one type of error to which surveys are subject.
 Results may also influenced by factors such as question wording, survey
 timing and other aspects of survey design.