Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Needed

Professional, administrative, and management support services
NAICS Code:
541 -- Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services/541910 -- Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling

The following solicitation provisions apply to this acquisition. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation? quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.



This is a firm fixed price acquisition being conducted under FAR part 12 in conjunction with FAR 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures (13.106).



The Office of Opinion Research (OPN) of the U.S. Department of State (the Client) is considering commissioning a representative public opinion survey in Vietnam in late 2016 as described below. We invite proposals for two possible designs: either a nationwide representative survey, or a survey representative of 6 cities and their associated rural areas.


SUMMARY OF CONTRACTOR'S RESPONSIBILITIES


• Designing an appropriate sample; 
• Translating, back-translating, formatting, and printing the questionnaire submitted by the Office of Opinion Research;
• Conducting a pretest;
• Managing fieldwork;
• Coding questionnaires, entering data, checking and cleaning the data; and 
• Providing required deliverables: detailed sampling design, translation and back-translation of questionnaire, pretest report, final field version of questionnaire and show cards, marginal frequencies, data in ASCII and SPSS formats, codebook, methodological report, contact sheets for selected interviewers, copies of 10 completed field questionnaires, and additional supporting documentation as necessary.


These responsibilities are described in detail below.


Sample Design: The Contractor shall propose two face-to-face probability sample designs: (1) a sample of 2,750 adults, age 18 and over, representative--to the extent possible---of the total population nationwide; (2) a sample of approximately 1,850 adults age 18 and over in at least 6 cities (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho, Haiphong, Danang, and Nha Trang) and associated rural areas. The samples shall be representative of the populations covered.


Before the beginning of fieldwork the Contractor shall submit a spreadsheet or SPSS file showing all of the primary sampling units (PSUs) for each stratum, together with a description of how each unit was selected. The Contractor shall indicate the skip intervals and random starting points used in the selection process, as well as the order in which the primary sampling units were selected within each stratum.


Questionnaire: OPN will provide an English-language questionnaire that will include approximately 45 substantive questions (40 closed-ended, 5 open-ended), focusing on public attitudes toward domestic economic and social issues, as well as international affairs.


In addition, for each respondent the questionnaire and final data set will include:


Demographics: including but not limited to gender, exact age, education, occupation, household income, number of adults in household who are eligible for the survey, economic class, city, region, urban/rural, religion and ethnicity


Interviewing information: 
• date of interview (month, day, day of week);
• interview start time, interview end time, duration of interview in minutes;
• variables used to stratify the sample; a unique code for each primary sampling unit, secondary sampling unit, and ultimate sampling point; and a variable indicating the order in which the PSUs were selected within each stratum if systematic sampling is used;
• interviewer ID, supervisor ID, field manager ID, data entry/keypuncher ID;
• interviewers' indication of the privacy of the interview and the comfort, comprehension and candor of the respondent;
• whether the respondent is the originally selected respondent or a substitute, the number of visits/call-backs necessary to achieve a successful interview, whether the interview was back-checked, and the method of back-checking (supervisor's presence during the original interview, separate face-to-face interview by either the supervisor or another interviewer, telephone call, and/or a letter or postcard).


Translation and Back-translation of Questionnaire: The Contractor is responsible for translating the questionnaire into colloquial Vietnamese and for back-translating the translated questionnaire into English. The back-translation must be done by someone who has not seen the original English questionnaire.


The Client will review the translation and consult with the Contractor on necessary changes. The Client must approve the final translation before the pretest.


PRE-TEST: After the Client approves the translation, the Contractor will pretest the full questionnaire with at least 30 randomly-selected representative interviews (15 in HCMC and 15 in Hanoi) that will not be included in the final sample.


The Contractor will provide the Client with a pretest report, including a demographic summary of the participants and a discussion by question of any problems or suggested changes to the questionnaire. The Client must approve any changes to the questionnaire.


FIELDWORK: Fieldwork will be done by face-to-face interviews in respondents' homes. All interviews shall be conducted in strict adherence to the sampling plan. The Contractor is responsible for organizing and overseeing all aspects of fieldwork, including: preparing and printing the final questionnaires; selecting and training interviewers; assigning contact lists to interviewers; supervising interviewers; enforcing quality controls; monitoring and recording contact and non-response rates; and providing weekly feedback to the Office of Opinion Research on the status of fieldwork.


If, in the course of fieldwork, it is apparent that there is an unusually large proportion of persons refusing to be interviewed, the Contractor must inform the Client.


Contact with every sampled household or adult should be attempted at least 4 times during fieldwork. The contact attempts should be spread over different times of the day and days of the week and weekend.


Note: the minimum achieved sample for the nationwide survey is 2,750 fully completed interviews, or 1,850 for the 6 city survey.


DATA MANAGEMENT: The Contractor is responsible for processing, cleaning, and coding the data in English, enforcing quality controls for data entry, and detecting data fabrication, if any.


Closed-end or pre-coded questions: The Contractor shall use the codes specified on the final questionnaire for all items.


Open-end questions: The Contractor will develop categories of responses based on 200 randomly selected questionnaires from all regions of the sample, providing at least 5 sample responses for each proposed category. Categories must be approved by the Client prior to coding responses.


The "Other" category should not include more than 10% of the total responses for any question. If any single response in the "Other" category amounts to more than 2%, then the Contractor will code this response as a separate response, not as "Other."


DELIVERABLES: The Contractor shall deliver the following to OPN by email (except as otherwise noted):


1) Detailed sampling design;


2) Translation and back-translation of the questionnaire;


3) Pretest report;


4) Field version of the questionnaire and all show cards;


5) Marginal frequencies (weighted, if appropriate) for all questions, including demographics;


6) The final, cleaned data files including all survey questions, demographics, interviewing information and (if applicable) weight values; these files shall be in two formats:


a. ASCII, with all records having the same length
b. SPSS Windows format (*.sav), with all variables and values labeled in English;


7) A complete codebook for all survey questions, demographics, interviewing information, and (if applicable) weight values, identifying the column positions of all variables in the ASCII file;


8) A detailed methodological report which contains sufficient details on the sampling design and weighting so that independent researchers would be able to replicate the survey using only information in the report. In particular, the methodological report shall include the following:


• A brief report of any unusual problems or significant events which may have influenced the conduct of the survey or the responses given;
• A description of field interviewing, including: exact dates of field work; interviewer selection, training and supervision; and enforcement of quality controls;
• A description of the sampling design and procedure, including:


o The universe sampled;
o The populations excluded from the sample and why these were excluded;
o Description of statistical documentation used to design the sample (e.g., census data) and date of the information;
o All forms of stratification used, and the basis for stratification; If you use differential probabilities of selection in sampling (e.g., stratification with different rates by strata), provide the justification for using those rates and describe the expected effects on the variances.
o Selection procedure at each stage of sampling: primary sampling unit (PSU), secondary sampling unit (SSU), sampling point, household and individual respondent;
o For PSUs and SSUs, indicate the order in which each unit was selected. For systematic sampling, indicate the random starting point and the skip interval;


• If you weight the data, provide a detailed description of weighting procedures. The Client must be able to recreate weight values based on this documentation, the data sources, and the data file. Any weights should account for:


o The probability of selection of the household and the adult (the base weights should be the inverse of the probability of selection);
o Nonresponse and noncoverage; 
o Adjustments to match population data (describe sources of population data).


• Report on sampling performance, including:


o Information on sampling point substitution, including: a list of sampling points that were replaced, the reason for their replacement, the procedures for replacement, and the replacement sampling points;
o Rate of respondent substitution and procedures for substituting respondents;
o The number of completed interviews, partial interviews, refusals, failed contacts (e.g. no one at home), cases that are not eligible (e.g. not a housing unit, no adults in the household), and cases of unknown eligibility (e.g. unable to locate address), and the resulting response rate ("RR1" as defined in "Standard Definitions" by the American Association for Public Opinion Research);
o An estimate of sampling error that takes into account the actual sampling procedures used (stratification, clustering, etc.). Include a brief explanation of how interviewing and fieldwork procedures affected the theoretical margin of error.


9) Selected contact sheets for 10 specific interviewers which the Client will specify after receipt of the final data set. These may be sent either in hard copy or as a scanned email attachment;


10) Ten completed questionnaires which the Client will specify after receipt of the final data set (either in hard copy or as a scanned email attachment);


11) The Client may request additional supporting documentation to fully understand the design and conduct of the survey (e.g., interviewer maps).


TIME SCHEDULE: Each stage of the survey project should be conducted according to a schedule agreed to by the Contractor and the Office of Opinion Research. The period of performance is anticipated to be one year from contract award.


CONFIDENTIALITY: The study is to be conducted in the name of the Contractor, in keeping with standard industry practice. The Client's identity shall not be revealed to field supervisors, interviewers or respondents in order to minimize bias. Further, the Client's identity, details of the project and the survey results shall not be revealed to outside parties - e.g., media, academic or government - at any point before, during or after completion of the project without the express written permission of the Client.

ARCHIVING OF STUDY: The Client may store parts of the study (questionnaires, data set, methodological summary) with a non-profit archive (e.g., the Roper Center, the National Archive and Records Administration). Projects will be embargoed for at least two years, and all identifiable markers of the Contractor will be removed.


BILLING AND PAYMENT: Payment is typically authorized either in a single installment upon receipt and approval of all required deliverables, OR in two installments - the first upon approval of the final questionnaire and sampling plan, and the second upon receipt and approval of all required deliverables. Please note, payment cannot be authorized upon commissioning the survey. All payments will be made in U.S. dollars. The method of payment is typically by electronic funds transfer if the Contractor provides appropriate banking information, but may also be made by U.S. Treasury check.


NOTE: the submittal instructions go under L-001 and the evaluation criteria fall under M-001 in GFMS (attached to FBO notice).


______________________________________________________



The following solicitation provisions apply to this acquisition:


• FAR 52.212-3, "Offeror Representations & Certifications Commercial Items" (Feb 2016)
____________________________________________


The following contract clauses apply to this acquisition:


• FAR 52.212-4, "Contract Terms and Conditions Commercial Items" (May 2015)


• FAR 52.212-5, "Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders" (Feb 2016).


In addition to the required paragraphs, the following are the applicable optional paragraphs under


52.212-5:


(8) 52.209-6,"Protecting the Government's Interest When Subcontracting with Contractors Debarred, Suspended, or Proposed for Debarment". (Aug 2013) (31 U.S.C. 6101 note)


(26) 52.222-19, Child Labor--Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies (Feb 2016) (E.O. 13126)


(27) 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities (Apr 2015)


(33)(i) 52.222-50, "Combatting Trafficking in Persons" (Mar 2015) (22 U.S.C. chapter 78 and E.O. 13627)


(40) 52.223-18, Encouraging Contractor Policies to Ban Text Messaging While Driving (Aug 2011) (E.O. 13513)


(49) 52.232-30, "Installment Payments for Commercial Items" (Oct 1995) (41 U.S.C. 4505, 10 U.S.C. 2307(f))

Contracting Office Address:
1735 N. Lynn St.
Arlington, Virginia 22209 
United States 

Primary Point of Contact.:
Amanda M. Rajah
RajahAM@state.gov

Secondary Point of Contact:
Terence G. Lord
lordtg@state.gov