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Measure
5.1.3: General Public’s Perceptions of Court Performance
This
measure is designed to solicit the opinions of the general public by means
of a telephone survey.9 The survey includes
questions concerning the court’s performance in each of the other four
standard areas.
Planning/Preparation.
Application of this measure requires the court to
contract with a consulting firm that regularly conducts telephone surveys.
The experience of courts in the demonstration project indicates that the
measure is likely to be unsuccessful if attempted in-house. To obtain a
valid sample and ensure reliable results, a professional research/marketing
firm is needed. The first step is to select the contractor who will conduct
the measure. The court may wish to release a request for proposal (RFP) to
obtain bids from relevant organizations. One court in the demonstration
project asked for the following in its RFP: (1) the contractor’s
experience in conducting similar surveys; (2) the qualifications and
experience of key personnel assigned to the project and their resumes; (3) a
description of the telephone facility to be used and the relationship
between the contractor and the facility; (4) a description of the sampling
frame, how the sample will be drawn from the sampling frame, and the
estimated sampling error; (5) the work schedule and timeframe for completion
of the project; and (6) the proposed budget. In addition, the court
specified the following responsibilities for the contractor:
-
Complete
1,000 interviews by telephone with county residents who are at least 18
years of age. A draft of the survey is provided in an attachment as a guide
to survey length and as a means of determining the amount of phone time
needed to complete each survey. The final survey may differ from the
attached draft, but not significantly.
-
Finalize
the survey instrument and pretest it.
-
Select
the sampling frame to be used and draw an appropriate sample from this list.
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Conduct
all telephone surveys from an in-house facility or through supervised staff
at a calling facility that is used regularly by the contractor.
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Encode
and clean all data collected via the survey instrument for computer
analysis.
-
Prepare
frequency tabulation by demographic characteristics for all survey items,
which should include, at a minimum, number and percentages by response
categories.
-
Provide
all data in (specify software)-readable format on 3.5-inch diskettes.
-
Provide
all documentation needed to analyze the data.
-
Print
all survey forms.
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Cover
all long-distance charges incurred in conducting the survey.
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Provide
a written description of the methodology used, estimates of the sampling
error, limitations of the research, and a copy of the final survey
instrument used.
Once
the contractor has been selected, the coordinator for the measure reviews Form
5.1.3, Public Perceptions of Court Performance, with the contractor to
determine what modifications might be necessary to increase its relevance
for the court’s jurisdiction. Form 5.1.3 includes questions associated
with each of the four standard areas.10
As
part of their review, the coordinator and contractor should consider what
the court wants to learn as a result of the survey. Is the court interested
in learning the public’s perceptions of specific areas of court
performance, regardless of the public’s actual experience with the court?
Or does the court want to know the perceptions of more informed members of
the public who have had some contact with the court? If the latter is
desired, the coordinator should instruct the contractor to use question 2 as
a screening question. If a respondent has had no contact with the court, the
interviewer should skip questions 4-18.
Data
Collection. The
contractor trains interviewers with regard to the questionnaire to ensure
standardization in the data collection process. The contractor then conducts
the telephone interviews with the sample drawn according to the
specifications in the contractor’s approved proposal.
Data
Analysis and Report Preparation.
The contractor ensures the data are entered into a computer file and checked
for accuracy. The contractor then analyzes the data and prepares a report,
which should include the percentage of each response for each question and
highlight the areas in which the court is perceived as performing well and
those in which improvement is needed. Responses by subgroups of respondents
(i.e., age, education, gender, income, previous contact with the court, and
race/ethnicity) can also be reviewed for discernible patterns.
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9 Although the
survey addresses the perceptions of the general public, the instrument can
be modified easily to address the perception of other publics such as
attorneys, jurors, and litigants.
10 Items 23 to 29 of the questionnaire are
relevant to Measure 1.5.3. The items seek information on the kinds of people
who do not access the courts and the reasons they do not. See Measure
1.5.3 in Performance Area 1, Access to Justice, for more information.
Go
to Form 5.1.3
Go
to Standard 5.1
Go
to Measure 1.5.3
Go
to Table of Contents |
