NORC statisticians and methodologists conduct research on how to improve survey data throughout the lifecycle and minimize sources of error that can impact data quality. We not only provide end-to-end survey research services to our clients but continuously research ways to improve the methods and approaches we use to conduct surveys.

Our research on survey design, methods, and quality covers a wide range of areas—from sampling, imputation, and weighting to recruitment contacts, incentives, questionnaire design and pre-testing methods. For example, recently NORC methodologists conducted research on transitioning several single-mode studies to multi-mode. Our methodologists were innovators in designing the initial web-first methods that use mail contacts to encourage response by web that is now commonly used in the industry. We have also conducted experiments to test the impact of different branding and messaging in recruitment contacts, use of text to recruit participants to phone and web surveys, and different pre-paid incentive amounts and whether the incentive was visible in the mailing to sampled members.

NORC maintains its own national sample frame to represent various target populations and conducts research to enhance the frame by integrating commercial, government, and other data sources. We have also been leveraging these data sources coupled with machine learning techniques to predict characteristics of sample members (e.g., race, language spoken, income, etc.) for use in sample stratification and targeting.