Lessons Learned in Attempting to Survey Hard-to-Reach Ethnic Segments Along with the Presentation of a Comprehensive Questionnaire

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Lessons Learned in Attempting to Survey Hard-to-Reach Ethnic Segments Along with the Presentation of a Comprehensive Questionnaire

Abstract: 

A survey questionnaire was developed and administered to transit users in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area to analyze the degree to which global satisfaction with transit is impacted by ethnicity and other relevant independent variables.

Although the data collected was not analyzed because the sample size was substantially smaller than required, the questionnaire used, which is included in its entirety in an appendix, has some uncommon variables and measurement approaches that can be used in a number of other survey questionnaires used in transit studies. Options involving sampling methodology and methods of administering the questionnaire that would have generated an acceptable sample size also are discussed.

Authors: 

RICHARD A. WERBEL, PhD

Dr. Richard Werbel is a professor of marketing at San José State University. He has been the principle investigator or a co-author of several prior Mineta Transportation Institute studies, including Factors Influencing Voting Results of Local Transportation Funding Initiatives With a Substantial Rail Transit Component: Case Studies of Ballots in Eleven Communities; Why Campaigns for Local Transportation Funding Initiatives Succeed or Fail: An Analysis of Four Communities and National Data; Land Use and Transportation Alternatives: Constraint or Expansion of Household Choice; and Developer-Planner Interaction in Transportation and Land Use Sustainability.

Dr. Werbel earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and his MBA from Northwestern University and his PhD from the University of Michigan. His primary research interest is survey questionnaire measurement of attitude components, although he has published on a wide variety of marketing topics.

Published: 
January 2011
Keywords: 
Questionnaires
Persons by race and ethnicity
Customer service
Market surveys
Socioeconomic factors

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