Citizen Survey

The Maine Development Foundation retained Strategic Marketing Services (SMS) of Portland, Maine, to design and conduct the Citizen Survey on behalf of the Maine Economic Growth Council and a variety of state agencies and non-profit organizations.

The statewide Citizen Survey was conducted by telephone between August 20 and September 6, 2001. The Citizen Survey was conducted among a statewide sample of 601 Maine households. A sample of this size yields a sampling error of +/- 4.00 percentage points with 95% confidence at the total sample level.

The survey instrument was pre-tested with persons unfamiliar with the study and was refined to correct question wording that may have been unclear to some respondents. The final instrument included approximately 139 questions and the actual respondent interviews averaged 32.5 minutes in length.

All interviewing was conducted by SMS. Among those households contacted for the survey, 502 refused to be interviewed, 85 terminated the interview prior to its completion and 601 completed the study for a 51% cooperation rate.