Methodology

You may be wondering why this year's Industry Report didn't show up in October, as it traditionally has. When the data came in this year, we found that fewer organizations of 10,000 employees or more had participated than usually did. We wanted to make sure that our data was as representative of that segment as it is of all the other segments, so we did a second round of data collection. This is the 24th time we've published the United States Training Industry Study, or what we refer to as the Industry Report. It details the formal training activity of U.S. organizations with 100 or more employees. We started with a random sample of companies in the United States, and then conducted telephone interviews to make sure each potential respondent was the best-qualified person to answer our questions about training at each company. This is the only survey in the industry that pre-qualifies candidates with telephone calls. Qualified respondents were then directed to a secure Web site to complete our questionnaire. The response rate was 35 percent (1,223 usable responses from a pool of 3,549 qualified respondents), with a precision estimate of plus or minus 2.8 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. Note: Throughout the report, percentage totals in charts may amount to slightly more or less than 100 due to rounding.