Ask Dr. Notebook

By Melissa August, Matthew Cooper, Wendy Cole, Ellin Martens, Desa Philadelphia, Julie Rawe, Alain Sanders, Flora Tartakovsky and Josh Tyrangiel

Q. I filled out the census short form, and--though I don't want to boast--I finished it in 3 min. flat. The reduction-in-paperwork instructions said it would take 10 min. for an average person to complete. How did the Census Bureau calculate its estimate?

A. Single people, such as you, probably take less time than others. To answer the question, Patricia Kelly, assistant division chief for forms design and printing in the Decennial Systems and Contract Management Office of the Census Bureau (she must have foldout business cards), used three separate, entirely unscientific sample groups in arriving at the estimate. First, she asked a group of colleagues with a wide range of educational backgrounds and household sizes to take the new forms home and jot down how long it took to complete them. Next, she asked friends and neighbors to do the same. Finally, Kelly and her staff watched videotapes of focus groups filling out forms, and then timed how long it took for the participants to finish. Kelly compared the results from the three test groups--about 40 forms in all--and found them almost identical to the equations she had worked out by adjusting her 1990 estimates for the fewer number of questions on the 2000 questionnaires. That's how she arrived at the 10-min. figure.

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