2014 Greater Miami Jewish Federation Population Study
Methodology
The results of the 2014 Greater Miami Jewish Federation Population Study are based on a telephone survey conducted in January/February 2014. The questionnaire was developed with significant community input, including: meetings with community rabbis, Jewish agency executives, lay leadership, Jewish Federation staff and the Jewish Population Study Committee. The goal was to ensure that the questionnaire reflected the broadest possible community interests.
The telephone survey utilized a state-of-the-art random-digit-dialing (RDD) methodology, combined with a sample generated from the Greater Miami Jewish Federation mailing list. In total, 2,020 telephone interviews were conducted, including 590 interviews from the RDD sample and 1,430 interviews from the list sample. In total, 100,000 different numbers were dialed more than 140,000 times to obtain the 590 RDD telephone interviews of 20 minutes each. There were 1,119 surveys completed on landlines and 901 on cell phones. Because of the explosion in cell phone usage and changes in telephone culture over the past decade, at the suggestion of Dr. Sheskin, Research Team Director, the methodology used in this study was subjected to a “peer review” process. While this did not cause any changes in the results, it did confirm that researchers used state-of-the-art methods in this study.
Overall, 83% of respondents in the RDD interviewing answered the question as to whether or not they were Jewish, of which 75% completed the questionnaire. More than 900 interviews were completed by appointment. The sample size of 2,020 is adequate so that one can be 95% certain that the margin of error for the overall results is no more than plus or minus 2.2%. At times, due to rounding, the percentages in this report may not sum to 100%, and the reported numbers may not sum to the appropriate numerical total. A complete description of the methodology, as well as more detailed findings, will be available on JewishMiami.org.
