DOI: 10.7280/d1kw29
title: Annual Survey of Orange County 1989

description: The theme of this year's survey is "Orange County: Approaching
 the 1990s. The survey is designed to provide an extensive analysis of
 issues affecting the next decade. The sample size is 1,085 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, 1,085 adult
 orange County residents were interviewed by telephone Sept. 6 to 23. 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 weekday nights, using a
 random sample of 4,500 listed and unlisted telephone numbers. These 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, 23 percent resulted in completed
 interviews and 15 percent were refusals. The completion rate for the
 survey (completions divided bycompletions plus refusals) was 61 percent.
 
 Other telephone outcomes included the following: 21 percent disconnected
 numbers; 3 percent computer or fax lines; 15 percent businesses and other
 non-Orange County households; 20 percent persistent no answers and l
 percent persistently unavailable respondents. Two percent were not
 completed because of language problems, including 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. Up to six callbacks
 were attempted per telephone number.
 
 Each interview included 90 questions and took an average of 20 minutes to
 complete. Most interviews ranged in length from 15 to 25 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 by students, followed by final revisions of
 the questions.
 
 The interview began with questions about housing, moving preferences,
 consumer confidence and perceptions of life in Orange County. These were
 followed by questions on growth, transportation and crime issues. A major
 section of the interview was then devoted to questions about air pollution
 and the Air Quality Management Plan. Later in the interview, we turned to
 the topics of charities. The conclusion of the survey was devoted to
 questions about work and commuting patterns, personal characteristics,
 household status and political attitudes.
 
 The survey's validity was checked by comparing the sample's
 characteristics to available information on Orange County's
 population. We compared the 1989 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. The 1989
 population estimates for north, west, central and south county regions
 were issued by the Demographic Research Unit, County of Orange.
 
 Other efforts were made to correct for possible errors in the course 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.