Survey team members ask important questions for campus researchers

By Linda Myers

"Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?"

A small warren of rooms in the basement of Ives Hall is the site where research for many of the Cornell studies that make national headlines is gathered via phone by a team of students, most of them undergraduates.

From right, ILR students and Computer-Assisted Survey Team members junior Tonya Richards and senior Nathaniel Berman meet with CAST director Yasamin DiCiccio Miller in CAST's Ives Hall office in December. Charles Harrington/University Photography

The students, who hold paying jobs as part of Cornell's Computer-Assisted Survey Team (CAST), are trained to use the latest surveying techniques and equipment -- the same ones used by census collectors and sophisticated telemarketing firms.

CAST, the brainchild of Yasamin DiCiccio Miller, a statistician and computer scientist at Cornell, was launched in 1996 when Miller saw a need among researchers for what she calls "high-quality, reliable data." She made a proposal to create an in-house computer-based surveying group to Edward Lawler, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, who allotted her an office and a modest loan. The idea took off immediately. "We paid the loan back within six months," said Miller.

The office now employs 60 students, who have worked on surveys initiated by Cornell faculty and others about everything from how well employers understand the Americans with Disabilities Act to what kinds of communities are family friendly. "The students are wonderful and a great resource," said Miller. "They are fast learners, flexible and they come in with high energy and great ideas."

"The surveys are fascinating because they are about people's lives," said Nathaniel Berman, a senior ILR student. "Working on them has been a great complement to my education." He worked recently on a study about how people are coping with aging, for Elaine Wethington, associate professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology.

Ron Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Group and professor of economics at the ILR School, has used CAST to investigate a range of problems affecting U.S universities, from rising tuition to changing retirement policies. He calls the survey team "an extraordinary resource" that produces accurate data at low cost.

Telephone surveys are known to produce much higher response rates, as well as much more accurate information, than mailed surveys, said Miller. CAST typically gets response rates of 70 percent or higher for most telephone surveys, and 90 percent or higher for longitudinal surveys, in which interviewees answer questions over time.

The survey team's methods are especially rigorous, too, with students undergoing an initial five hours of training before they make their first phone call, and follow-up training throughout their employment.

"Interviewing is a very interactive process," said Miller. Most responses require judgment to interpret, so a proxy computer is used that allows an office staff member to monitor all calls unobtrusively, to make sure that people being surveyed understand the questions and their responses are recorded correctly. One rule: All answers are confidential.

"The students who conduct the telephone surveys are very well-trained, well-supervised and take their work seriously," said Susanne Bruyere, director of the Program on Employment and Disability in the ILR School's extension division, who has contracted with CAST to do several U.S. Presidential Task Force surveys on disability nondiscrimination policies and practices in the workplace. Miller and the CAST professional staff helped her group design the surveys and assess the responses. Those services and others, such as report writing, finding appropriate samples and the best sample size, are offered to all clients.

Other Cornell faculty who have used CAST's services include: ILR faculty Samuel Bacharach (alcoholism and retirement); Harry Katz and Rosemary Batt (high employee turnover in the telecommunications industry); Seeber (Fortune 1000 companies' use of alternative dispute resolution); and Richard Hurd (white collar workers' views on unions and organizing campaigns). CAST, which is strictly nonprofit, also assists many non-Cornell clients.

"There's a really nice synergy between the work we need and what the students have to offer," said Miller. "They take their work as a personal challenge, take an active interest in the projects and let staff know when survey questions could be improved." They also add their own touches to the office, she said, pointing to a message board that shows who completed the longest, the shortest and the grumpiest interviews.

CAST is open year-round, seven days a week, and is run by an internal management team composed of Miller, facility managers and programmers. At any given time the office handles about a dozen surveys, with another six waiting in the wings. Students typically work about 10 hours a week each and are responsible for finding others to fill their shifts if they can't be there. "CAST taught me a lot about responsibility as well as how to be a better listener, to hear people's whole stories," said Berman. The latter is a skill he now uses in the classroom.

Tonya Richards, a junior in the ILR School who describes herself as "not a talkative person" said, "when I did my first survey, I was apprehensive that people would hang up on me." She credits the CAST job with giving her more self confidence, which helped her speak up more in class.

The job also provides student employees with a sense of community. "You get to meet everyone who works at CAST, not just people on your shift," said Richards. "I've made a lot of friends here." Added Berman: "When I've run into coworkers elsewhere on campus, there's an instant recognition."

Students, many of them from the ILR School, frequently join CAST as freshmen and stay until graduation, which gives the office continuity. Quarterly parties with pizza, ice cream and activities like bowling add to the sense of a team. Miller said: "It starts out as a job and ends up being a membership."

The best part of her work is watching the students change and grow, Miller said. "It's great to see them learn to cooperate with each other and see them develop confidence over time and emerge as adults after four years."

For information about CAST, contact Miller at 255-0148 or yd17@cornell.edu or see this web site: http://www.cast.cornell.edu/.