Method

In 2000 a random telephone survey was conducted in conjunction with a trial newspaper survey.  This trail found that random telephone survey was the best method to get a representative view of residents on a range of issues.  The self-completion survey tended to get responses from those residents that had a particular issue to discuss.  The committee was particularly concerned that self-completion surveys were not random.

A random sample of 400 residents is drawn from the Kangaroo Island population of 4,384 (2002 ABS data) using the electronic white pages and contacted using Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI) methodology.

Interview time is between 15 and 20 minutes and calls are made at a variety of times and weekdays.  A range of methods are used to ensure respondent bias is limited.

The survey is usually conducted in October/November of each year, however there have been exceptions to this in the past.

Once collected results are the aggregated, analysed and presented in an annual Resident Survey Report.

Questionnare Design

The Resident Survey Questionnaire is developed in conjunction with the Management Committee and Market Research company.  Questions relate to TOMM indicators, and stakeholders have the right to ask two questions each year in the survey.  There is a range of demographic information collected to assist in ensuring the sample is not biased towards one sector of the community.  Care is taken to ensure the comparability of relevant questions to previous surveys and original benchmarks.