CSR Projects

What kinds of projects are done at CSR?

CSR has conducted a wide range of projects. We have worked on behalf of academic researchers, government agencies, private foundations, businesses, and non-profit organizations.

CSR is experienced with an array of contact modes:

  • Telephone interviewing (with WinCATI)
  • Mail-out survey and contact services
  • Web-based data collection
  • In-person interviewing

CSR has recently purchased Quatlrics which allows for the creation and implementation of sophisticated, user friendly online surveys. Qualtrics can be used to schedule both reminder and thank-you emails based on completion of the survey.

What services does CSR provide?
CSR is a full-service research facility. We offer customized project design, professional interviewing, and data collection using the latest survey technologies, as well as data analysis and report preparation.

How much does it cost to do a survey?
CSR's rates are competitive with other academic and commercial survey organizations. Project costs can vary widely depending on factors such as the scope of services you require, the survey methodology used, the number of respondents, the nature of the sample, etc. Costs can range anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000. So while typical projects have been in the $20,000 to $50,000 range, we have also done smaller and larger projects. We invite you to contact one of our senior staff to discuss the scope of your project and factors that govern cost.

What's the best way to collect data for my project?
CSR can advise you on the most productive and cost-effective method for collecting your data: telephone, mail, electronically, or in-person. CSR ensures scientific validity of your study by helping specify procedures for selecting respondents within households, securing cooperation, and following up incomplete interviews or questionnaires.

Who writes the questions for my survey?
CSR can write the question for you or can assist you in writing your own. We will help you determine the best question formats to measure people's opinions, experiences, attitudes, and behaviors. We can advise you on the proper sequencing of items, a critical design feature for maintaining objectivity and ensuring that respondents understand your questions.

Can I get a copy of one of your old reports?
Most are available for a nominal fee. Contact Ila Crawford for details and specific costs.

Custom Project Design

We will help you clarify your study objectives and advise you on how to get the most research value from available resources.

How We Design Projects
building
Data Collection

We specialize in the use of Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing and Personal Interviewing.

How We Collect Data
data
Data Analysis

CSR prepares statistical analyses and reports of survey results ranging from simple tabulations to authoritative, in-depth narrative reports.

How We Create Reports
data

Cancer Center - Catchment Area Health Assessment Survey

Funded by NIH P30 NCI Supplement. Survey of University of Virginia Cancer Center's catchment area to capture residents' health behaviors, cancer knowledge and attitudes, and demographic characteristics. Study design combined probability and non-probability sampling techniques and collected responses by mail, web, phone, and in- person efforts across catchment region.

Fairfax NCS 2019

Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services (NCS) commissioned CSR to conduct their annual Customer Satisfaction Survey for five centers/services: 1) Human Services Transportation (HST), 2) Senior Centers (SC), 3) Community Centers , 4) Teen Centers, and 5) Technology Centers. CSR conducted the data collection for HST and SC, which was administered by mail and web. Fairfax NCS collected data for CC, Teen, and Tech Centers.

Annual Newsroom Diversity Survey

The ASNE Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey has been conducted annually since 1978. The survey measures diversity of employees within newsrooms with respect to race, ethnicity and gender. NLA (formerly ASNE) has the goal of having the percentage of minorities working in newsrooms nationwide equal to the percentage of minorities in teh nation's population by 2025. The survey data is used by NLE to track newsroom employment trends to assess success of meeting this goal.

12-hour Nursing Shift Survey

CSR assisted with questionnaire design and pretesting for a planned survey of Virginia Nurses, including cognitive interviews with 14 UVa nurses who pre-tested the draft instrument. The questionnaire explored nurses' views of the advantages and disadvantages of 12-hour vs 8-hour work shifts, taking into account personal needs and benefits to patients and work teams. The final instrument was fielded by the Virginia Nursing Association, polling their membership.

Punjab Women's Empowerment in Agriculture - Sherry Mohsin

CSR assisted visiting international student Sherry Mohsin (Durr e Shahwar Mohsin Ul Haq) with data analysis in SPSS and Stata of survey data she collected in Punjab designed to measure womens' empowerment in agriculture. CSR assisted with analysis only and did not charge a fee for this educational work.

Charlottesville Gas Division - Safety

Surveys to evaluate general knowledge and the impact of education efforts regarding natural gas safety on the general population and on businesses and excavators working in the area. Work replicates studies done in 2008.

Reston Community Center Survey 2009 -- Execution Phase

The purpose of the 2009 Reston Community Center Citizen Satisfaction Survey was to assess current and projected future use of programs and facilities as well as citizen priorities for recreational needs within the context of anticipated increases in population and tax base related to the metro Silver Line. The survey introduced new questions to assess the community’s priorities for indoor recreational facilities and to provide information for discussions about budget and growth decisions for the future.

Fairfax County DFS 2009

The Fairfax County Department of Family Services survey is a client satisfaction survey. The survey is a self-administered paper survey that is mailed to clients’ home addresses. The survey was mailed to a random sample of 3500 clients. The survey also included a telephone follow-up to approximately 25% of the non-respondents. All questionnaires were made available in English and five additional languages Vietnamese Farsi Spanish Korean and Arabic. This was the second survey conducted for the Fairfax County Department of Family Services.

CRA-W (Computing Education Evaluation)

The goal of this web survey was to evaluate the effect of programs sponsored by Computing Research Associates that promote careers in computing research fields for women and minorities and that provide support to students who seek to pursue careers in these fields. A total of 412 students from a national sample of students who had graduated from an undergraduate program in computing completed the on-line questionnaire. The study found significant positive differences between those who participated in CRA programs compared to others.

APCO Dr Partnerships 2010

This survey of US and Canadian physicians attempted to find out more about attititudes and perceptions that might effect decisions about where & how to practice medicine repeating a study from 2007 and adding a Web component to the data collection. The questionnaire was designed to try to better understand the pressures facing practicing physicians today by identifying the challenges as well as the satisfactions of the profession. The content of the survey addressed physician satisfaction and attitudes about the practice of medicine in general and the aspects of medicine that physicians like and dislike.

Analysis of ENT diagnoses in the National Ambulatory Care Survey

CSR gave technical assistance to Jose Mattos MD-MPH student at UVa. for a project analyzing data on ear nose and throat diagnoses from the National Ambulatory Care Survey a large annual data collectiion funded by CDC. The study focused on changes over time in presentation of asthma and other complaints separating data by demographic groups. Data for specific ailments and years had to be extracted from multiple NAMCS data sets. Due to the weighting scheme used in this data set complex sampling analysis methods in STATA needed to be applied to the custom-built final data set..

UVIMCO 2009

This was a web-based survey of 23 employees of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company comparable to a previous survey in 2007. The questionnaire covered employee satisfaction with rewards facilities training empowerment teamwork creativity workplace environment hiring and retention directors managers and CEO and overall satisfaction.

PWC Organizational Survey 2010

Prince William County commissioned the Center for Survey Research to conduct its fourth biennial survey of all full and part-time employees. The purpose of the survey was to assess employee satisfaction with their work environment and whether or not employees are living out the county's vision and values.

VDEM Survey on Emergency Preparedness National Capital Region

Telephone survey of randomly contacted residents of Washington DC and the areas of Virginia and Maryland considered to be part of the National Capital Region. Contact was made by listed sample RDD and cell phone. The project was a collaborative effort among the emergency management agencies of DC and its five surrounding states (Virginia Maryland Delaware Pennsylvania and West Virginia.) The survey gathered information on people’s preparedness trust in information sources special needs likely evacuation destinations and routes and other information needed by the emergency management agencies to prepare their plans for a possible man-made emergency in the area. A full report was prepared in addition to multiple presentations for stakeholders and emergency planners and responders.

Darden Surveys (2009 FY & SY surveys)

Since 2001 CSR has conducted data analysis of First year and Second Year student surveys for the Darden School. This year CSR was asked to do data analysis for the Second Year only. The analysis includes mean ratings and cross tabulations by demographic variables by year and comparison across years.

PWC Citizen Satisfaction 2009

Annual Citizen Satisfaction Survey for Prince William County VA was based on a dual-frame sample that included Random Digit Dialing of landline phones and cell phones. The survey included new questions introduced in 2008 to track changes related to the County's illegal immigration enforcement policy. This year's results showed significant increases in many satisfaction items.

Reston Community Center Survey 2009 -- Design Phase

This phase of the 2009 Reston Community Center project was specifically for the purpose of designing and developing the project. Time was spent consulting with the client and the Reston Board of Supervisors on the content of the survey and the protocol for implementing the study which included a CSR experimental design. CSR worked directly with the Reston Community Center Director to define the experimental protocol which involved the use of an address-based sampling plan.

Batten Institute Survey of UVA Alumni Entrepreneurship

The UVA Center for Survey Research (CSR) assisted the Batten Institute to design and execute a confidential self-administered survey (mail out and web) of a large sample of alumni of the University of Virginia. CSR assisted in the development of the survey questionnaire. The survey was designed to capture information to inform an estimate of the economic impact of entrepreneurial ventures in which Uva alumni have been involved or which they founded. The survey also was designed to support an analysis of factors that may be related to engagement in entrepreneurial activities.

VDH SASS: Alternative septic regulations

In spring 2009 the Division of Onsite Sewage and Water Services in the Office of Environmental Health at the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) contracted with the Center for Survey Research (CSR) at the University of Virginia to design and conduct a survey of Virginia residents regarding proposed emergency regulations for alternative onsite sewage systems. In spring 2009 the Division of Onsite Sewage and Water Services in the Office of Environmental Health at the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) contracted with the Center for Survey Research (CSR) at the University of Virginia to design and conduct a survey of Virginia residents regarding proposed emergency regulations for alternative onsite sewage systems.

Loudoun County Needs Assessment

CSR and LCDFS collaborated to design three survey questionnaires. A) web-based survey of human services programs in the county to help understand the array of human services resources already in place b) mail survey sent to 2 200 households in Loudoun and c) “lobby survey” placed at ten human service agencies for clients to fill out and return anonymously.
Project design used a stakeholders workshop about and two focus groups to guide the creation of a viable instrument that was used for both main resident distribution and for the agency lobbies. CSR and LCDFS also added a community assets inventory to inform discussions about resources already in-hand. CSR provided all analysis and a full written report of the findings from the surveys.

Aid & Application Awareness study 09

The goal of this survey was to replicate a set of surveys done in 2007 and 2008 which gathered information about how high school seniors and their families make choices about college. The surveys were focused particularly on financial concerns or limitations. The Center for Survey Research (CSR) was contracted by the researchers (Sarah Turner Professor of Economics & Education at the University of Virginia and Christopher Avery Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) to conduct the survey and collect the data. Although many of the same questions were asked this year’s protocol did differ significantly from the 2007/2008 survey design most notably the survey was only administered to students and only in the spring. Because many high school seniors could still be under eighteen years old when they were first recruited for the survey parental consent was required before they could be contacted. Responses were collected via the Internet and on paper forms.

UVA IT Analysis 2009: Information Technology and the Future of the University.

CSR also consulted to UVA ITC as they prepared results for publication on their web page using the data from the 2008 survey of IT users which was titled Information Technology and the Future of the University. The survey involved advance letters to inform participants about the study and ask for their participation mailed on November 19 2008 to the 3 400 people in the sample. Letters to students contained a $2 bill as an incentive to participate following the principles of social exchange theory outlined in Dillman’s Tailored Design Method. Most of the letters were sent via UVA Messenger Mail while several hundred were sent to off-Grounds addresses by first class U.S. mail. The median length of time to complete the interview was 18 minutes. A total of 1 525 questionnaires were completed. The overall unweighted response rate for the survey was 44.9%. Among the sampling groups response rates were highest for undergraduates (57.8%) and lowest for graduate students (36.1%). With 1 525 (5.3%) of the estimated qualified reachable population of 29 012 responding the margin of error for questions answered by all respondents in this survey is ±2.4% at the 95% level of confidence.

Equipoise in Clinical Trials-Djulbegovich

Working with researchers at the University of South Florida CSR designed and fielded this vignette-based factorial web survey to investigate whether clinical trials could be identified where the interests of trial patients and future patients come into balance or "equipoise." Deployed on a customized website hosted by CSR the web survey presented each expert respondent--recruited from Institutional Review Board members at the 122 U.S. American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) schools--with four pairs of randomized clinical trial vignettes followed by a ninth "bonus" vignette of a type that matched one of the previous four pairs. In each of the nine vignettes seven aspects of each scenario could be randomly varied resulting in over 1 000 possible variations covering different phases of hypothetical clinical trials involving rheumatoid arthritis and pancreatic cancer patients.

PWC Immigration Supplement

Semi-structured tape recorded telephone interviews with selected residents of Prince William County to probe more deeply into opinions about the County’s illegal immigration enforcement policy. Results were analyzed qualitatively for use in the final report of the 2-year evaluation study of the policy carried out by CSR and PERF.

APCO 2007 Dr Partnerships

This was a mail survey of a random sample of 1 329 physicians in the U.S. and Canada stratified by country and physician type (general practitioner or specialist). The survey asked physicians about opinions about the direction of the profession in general aids and hindrances to practicing medicine time spent on various activities as a percentage of the typical day impacts of insurance companies and governments patient relationships perceived support from various types of organizations opinions about physician advocacy opinions about pharmaceutical companies and demographics. The protocol included an advance letter a survey packet with a $2 U.S. Jefferson bill for U.S. physicians or a $2 Canadian coin (“toonie”) as a token of appreciation a generic thank-you/reminder post card a second survey packet sent by two-day Priority Mail to nonrespondents a second thank-you/reminder post card to nonrespondents and telephone reminder calls to nonrespondents. The unweighted AAPOR RR3 response rate was 25.9% (26.7% U.S. 23.8% Canadian).

UVA Health Services Foundation - 2008 Employee Engagement Survey

Since 2006 the University of Virginia Health Services Foundation has conducted an Employee Engagement Survey. This survey which is based on the Q12 questions developed by the Gallup Research Group is directed to all HSF employees including Directors Managers Supervisors Health Care providers and all Other General Staff. Every year HSF commissions CSR to analyze its Employee Engagement survey data and to present a summary report of the findings.

Charlottesville Employees Survey 2010

Web and mail survey designed to assess employees’ satisfaction with their work environment and give employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas and opinions to help make the City of Charlottesville a better place to work. CSR had previously conducted a similar survey for the City in 2006. The survey was conducted from June 2 to July 23 2010. List of all full and part-time city employees supplied by the client. Of the 903 employees invited to do the survey 389 completed the survey by web and 120 completed the survey on paper. A total of 509 employees participated overall which is a 56% response rate.

First Destinations

This was a survey of all fourth year undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences. Students were asked to participate in the survey in the early spring just prior to graduation. The survey ask students what they anticipated their "first destination" to be upon graduation. Students were then surveyed in the fall immediately following graduation to see how closely their information matched what they actually did after graduation.

UVA Program Council Student Survey

CSR provided questionnaire review for the University Programs Council's Spring 2008 web survey a needs assessment instrument for community building through activities programs for U.Va. Students. The survey has been conducted in previous years CSR provided advice on survey design and question framing for the 2007-8 survey.

Groundhog Day Survey 2008

CSR created a web-based version of an instructional survey exercise for use in Prof. Guterbock's Spring 2008 undergraduate research methods class. The web-based tool was used by students in the class to enter data from interviews they conducted concerning people's awareness and beliefs about Groundhog Day.

Social Norming Study - UVA 2008

The Social Norms Study is about the Health Promotion Alcohol Survey which is developed by the Office of Health Promotion in the Department of Student Health in order to collect information on alcohol use perceptions behaviors and attitudes among University of Virginia students. By collecting normative information annually the program is able to continue a social norms campaign that is relevant to UVa undergraduates. The data is also used to study the effectiveness of the social norms approach. Every year the Center for Survey Research (CSR) advises the office in sampling design and weight the final collected data for analysis purposes.

HPV vaccine panel study

This panel study of barriers to access to the HPV vaccine and how they can be overcome was based on a sample of caregivers of girls eligible for the vaccine (11-12 yrears old) that was obtained from physician records at UVA's Medical Center. Three waves of girls representing all eligible girls in the three months prior to data collection were contacted. This allowed sufficient numbers in the sample for analysis.

REACH Low Income Health Choices Project

CSR advised on and formatted the questionnaire developed and hosted an online signup database and entered data for the REACH project study wherein low income participants engage in several rounds of hypothetical group decisions regarding health choices and trade-offs.

C-TPAT 2009

) U.S. Customs and Border Protection Department of Homeland Security asked the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia to conduct a cost-benefit survey of C-TPAT partners. ViaTech Systems Inc. issued a purchase order establishing the Center for Survey Research as a subcontractor to conduct the requested surveys. The first survey was designed to assess overall satisfaction with the C-TPAT program. The second survey included more details regarding implementation and benefits. The final survey was designed to be a cost analysis survey.

Children's Futures - P/PV Trenton

Telephone survey of parents of young children (ages 0 - 5) in the city of Trenton NJ. As part of a long-term evaluation of the Childrens Futures early child intervention program the survey asks parents about the challenges they face in raising young children and their access to various forms of assistance. The sample came from the following
1) list of participants in program
2) list of those prescreened & eligible to participate
3) directory listed sample
4) listed sample targeted for young families and
5) cell phone sample which was inefficient in pretest therefore deemed unusable for main production

Incentive gift cards worth $10 at Walmart and were purchased by the client but sent by mail to respondents by CSR.

Surgical Outcomes Instrument Development

Instrument to be developed for mail-out survey about effect on anesthesiologists of adverse event in OR including most recent most memorable and all events pretest results used for grant submission for production study

BioX Curriculum Evaluation

CSR assisted faculty researchers at San Jose State University to evaluate a curriculum experiment for teaching MEB (Material and Energy Balance). The SJSU researchers and their partners administered paper surveys of students at five universities at the end of the course and web-based surveys to faculty who teach chemical engineering. There were 126 completed student surveys and 62 completed faculty surveys. CSR performed data manipulation and data analysis.

PWC Immigration Policing Main Project

In collaboration with the Police Executive Research Forum CSR completed a comprehensive two year multi-method evaluation of the illegal immigration policy adopted in 2007 by Prince William County Va. The study resulted in an interim report in 2009 and a final report released in November 2010. Data from annual citizen surveys of the County were supplemented by police data key informant interviews and supplementary semi-structured interviews with residents and community leaders.

WCPS08: Washington County Triennial School Census

CSR staff consulted to SERL-VCU to support the 2008 Washington County Triennial School Census. Activities included advice on Access database structure SPSS analysis to produce census counts and written technical notes on the process.

Darden School First and Second Year Surveys

Since 2001 CSR has condcuted data analysis of First Year and Second Year student surveys for the Darden School. The analysis includes mean ratings and crosstabulations by demographic variable by year and comparisons across years..

Uva HR Gallup 12 survey

This online survey was designed to determine HR directors' opinions about their peers and Vice President for Human Resources. The survey included the Gallup 12 questions leadership top ten values and comments about each director strength and areas of improvement. CSR collected and analyzed the data.

CPSCensus08: VCU Triennial School Censuses-Chesterfield

CSR staff consulted to SERL-VCU to support the 2008 Chesterfield County Triennial School Census. Activities included advice on Access database structure SPSS analysis to produce census counts and written technical notes on the process.

PWC Cell Phone Pilot

This pilot project was a supplement to the 2007 Prince William County Citizen Satisfaction. It was designed to determine the feasibility and efficacy of conducting citizen satisfaction survey via cell-phone in Prince William County. Two small experiences were embedded dealing with survey length and cash incentives. Overall the results support our recommendations to Prince William County Board of Supervisors that the annual citizen satisfaction survey should include cell-phone samples in 2008.

PWC CS_2008 Supplement

This brief report is a supplement to the 2008 Prince William County Citizen Satisfaction Survey. For the present analysis the complete 2008 dataset was divided into 3 sub-datasets RDD & targeted listed (the original landline design) RDD & Targeted Listed & General Listed (the modified landline design) and RDD & Targeted Listed & General Listed & Cell-Phone (the new design). With regards to the results analysis of the different 2008 sub-datasets indicates no clear direction of the impact of change in design. The results were mixed as some items showed significant increase in satisfaction ratings while other showed significant decrease in satisfaction ratings depending on which designs are used to compare the years.

Rockville MD 08

The third iteration of a survey to assess the level of satisfaction of Rockville employees with the internal services offered to them by the various departments of the City government. The original instrument was designed with CSR guidance it has since been editted and is now distributed anonymously by Rockville City staff and returned in sealed envelopes that are sent to CSR for data entry analysis and reporting.

UVa NHTS -- Uva-Specific Travel Survey of Students for VDOT

As part of the 2009 Virginia add-on to the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) Virginia Department of Transportation asked CSR to administer the NHTS instrument to U.Va. Students. U.Va. Worked in conjunction with researchers at VCU ODU and Virginia Tech to convert the original telephone instrument to a web survey. The travel diary and study protocol was customized to a University setting. Students (n=1003 at U.Va.) provided trip diary information for randomly pre-assigned travel days allowing analysis of origin destination data. The data will allow transportation modelers to improve transportation models for the college-age population that is normally under-represented in the NHTS in University communities.

AASRO Support

CSR programming staff created a relational database in Access to track membership and participant information for AASRO at the individual and organizational level. (AASRO is an association of organizations not individuals.) CSR also designed ballot materials and carried out the logistics for AASRO's first election of officers in January 2009.

BioX NSF Proposal 2008

CSR assisted faculty researchers and SJSU and UVA to analyze a student survey and student assessment instrument. The purpose was to evalute the impact of a curriculum intervention regarding teaching MEB (Material and Energy Balance) in chemical engineering courses. Students at six colleges participated SJSU Iowa St. University of Tennessee Lafayette UMBC and Texas A&M.