Release Date: November 19, 2003

Issues covered by the survey >>
Environmental :: Governmental :: Educational :: Current :: Consumer Sentiment (Dec 03)

The College of Business at the University of West Florida, in cooperation with The Listener Group, a Gulf Breeze, Florida, marketing research firm, has established a Household Panel representing the Pensacola Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The MSA consists of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Detailed information on the goals, operation, and representativeness of the UWF/Listener Group Panel is available at its Web site (http://uwf.edu/panel). This release reports the results of the inaugural survey of panel members. Plans are to survey panel members on a regular basis.

During October 2003, panel members were asked a series of questions dealing with the economy, environment, education, current issues, and were asked for their assessment of governmental performance. The questions came from several sources. First, several questions from a 1993 UWF Department of Marketing and Economics survey were repeated. The 1993 survey used a representative sample of Escambia County heads of household, so results on selected questions in the current panel survey are directly comparable to those obtained ten years ago, allowing an assessment of changes in opinions over the period. Comparative data are provided in the results.

Second, input was generated by UWF/Georgia Tech scientists who are studying environmental quality in our region. Several questions are designed to be repeated on a regular basis in subsequent panel surveys, allowing an assessment of changes in environmental quality perceptions over time.

Third, The Listener Group consulted local community representatives to identify current issues of local interest. Issues identified included ones concerning the economy, environment, and education. All of these issues were addressed and one other, the concept of a maritime museum, was also selected for inclusion. Subsequent panel surveys will address other current issues of interest in the Northwest Florida area.

Finally, the panel responded to a series of questions designed to provide a Pensacola Metropolitan Statistical Area analogue of the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment (http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/), a key national economic indicator similar to the Conference Board’s Index of Consumer Confidence. Also, data collected allow for the calculation of the Index of Consumer Expectations and the Index of Current Economic Conditions. These indexes complement the Index of Consumer Sentiment. MSA analogues of these two indexes have been released in Dec 2003.
Participating in the current survey were 424 panel members, representing 58 percent of the total panel membership.

The margin of error for the current survey is estimated to be plus or minus 5 percent. This means that if we administered this survey 100 times, we would expect the results to differ by no more than plus or minus 5 percent from the results reported here in at least 95 out of the 100 surveys. For the scaled response questions (questions 7A-F, ratings of government entities), we estimate the margin of error to be plus or minus .25 of one scale point. The question evaluating the performance of the city government and city police for 2003 has a slightly higher margin of error (about plus or minus .6 of a scale point) due to a smaller sample size; only city residents’ answers were used to calculate the mean for this question.

The questions from Panel Survey 0001 and basic results are shown on the following pages.

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