Lifelong Learning Imperative in Engineering: Sustaining American Competitiveness in the 21st Century (2012)
Chapter: APPENDIX E: 2011 LLI Survey Respondent Pool Characteristics
APPENDIX E
2011 LIFELONG IMPERATIVE SURVEY RESPONDENT POOL CHARACTERISTICS
The responses for this project were categorized into two components:
1. Random Component: We selected respondents via true random sampling with a known probability of selection wherever possible. Response rates16 from our random component range from 5.8% to 13.1% dependent upon the sampled group (various professional engineering societies and University of Illinois alumni). The overall response rate was 9.4%.
The sampling frame for professional societies was all active, nonstudent members with a US mailing address. The sampling frame for Illinois alumni was everyone who graduated with any degree in engineering (bachelor’s and above) between 1985 and 2005 and had a US mailing address.
2. Nonrandom component: Sometimes, due to privacy concerns or restrictions on email lists, it was not possible to draw a random sample of respondents. In those cases, we relied upon the organizations to invite members to take our survey in whatever way they thought was best. This formed the nonrandom component of the surveys.
Overall, 19.7% of the responses came from the random component, and 80.3% from the nonrandom component.
Following is the breakdown of survey respondents by demographic and employment characteristics:
Gender
84.9% Male
15.1% Female
Race
83.4% White
16.6% Nonwhite
Sector
70.2% Manufacturing
12.5% IT
4.8% Pharma
3.1% Academia
2.0% Energy/Mining
1.7% Civil
1.6% Defense
4.1% Other
Discipline
41.9% Mechanical
27.4% Electrical
16.2% Interdisciplinary
7.3% Chemical
2.7% Civil
3.5% Other
Management Level
51.8% Nonmanagerial
32.4% First level
11.6% Mid-level
4.2% Top level
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16 American Association for Public Opinion Research, standard definition for response rate #2 (www.aapor.org/Standard_Definitions2.htm).
Member of a Professional Society
58.8% Not a member
41.2% Member of at least one
Region of the US
69.8% Midwest
12.0% South
10.3% Northeast
8.0% West
