About our Research Methodology
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The Discover Small Business Watch is compiled each month by Rasmussen Reports, LLC, an independent research firm, based on telephone interviews and survey responses from approximately 750 small business owners. In addition, approximately 3,000 potential users of small business products and services are surveyed four times per year.
The questions used to compile the Small Business Watch are intended to determine small business owners' relative confidence in general economic conditions, business growth and business spending. To calculate the Watch, a numeric indicator has been created by adding data positives, subtracting data negatives and then dividing the total from the baseline month of August 2006 to determine the relative Small Business Watch value.
Factors including sampling, question wording, survey design and overall methodology may impact reported results.
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The margin of error for the sample involving small business owners is approximately +/- 3.8 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. This represents a slight increase from +/- 3.2 percentage points which was caused by a change in sample size from 1,000 to 750 in April 2009.
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For the sample involving potential small business users, the margin of sampling error is +/- 1.8 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. This represents a slight increase from +/- 1.6 percentage points which was caused by a reduction of the sample size from 4,000 to 3,000 in April 2009.
The method for calculating the Small Business Watch is subject to revision depending on data tracking history and correlations with movements in the U.S. economy.
