SURVEY OVERVIEW
ABOUT THIS REPORT
This report presents the results of the Community Trust in ABS Statistics Survey (CTASS). The purpose of the CTASS was to measure the current levels of trust in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and its products among the general community and informed users of ABS statistics (academics, economists and journalists).
The 2015 CTASS was the second of its kind, having previously been administered in 2010. Though there have been some changes to the design and implementation of the CTASS over these years, this report also presents a comparison of key findings. Readers are advised to view these comparisons as indicative only.
Throughout the report, results have been presented as whole numbers. Where totals are presented, these will not always sum to 100 due to rounding or the allowance for multiple responses.
When reporting on the general community results, weighted data has been used throughout. Where subgroup variations are reported, only those categories that showed statistically significant variations have been included in the discussion.
The Social Research Centre (SRC) was commissioned to conduct the 2015 CTASS and provided an independent report of results. This report presents a summary of those findings.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
The CTASS was administered and analysed by the SRC due to the nature of the survey. This eliminates the possibility of bias being introduced by the ABS solely designing and administering a survey related to trust in the ABS and their products. SRC was responsible for questionnaire review (with a view to maintaining consistency with the 2010 instrument where possible), programming, interviewing, data cleaning, analysis and reporting.
In total, 142 informed users of ABS statistics and 2,200 members of the general community participated in the research. Both surveys were administered via Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) in June and July 2015.
The general community survey was conducted using a dual-frame (landline and mobile) sample frame. The lists were randomly generated and the landline sample involved random sampling within 15 geographic strata. Weighting was applied to the data to ensure results were representative of Australians aged 15 years or older.
The sample frame for the informed users survey was compiled by the ABS and consisted of 163 academics, 26 economists and 2 journalists. The academics and journalists had received contact from the ABS prior to being contacted for the survey and had consented to participating in the research.
For further details, please refer to the methodology section of this report.
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