Research Information Division
March 5, 2008
I Friday I received a phone call from the Research Information Division of the Church (part of the Correlation Department). This is the division that does the surveys (research) whenever the Church wants to know about things. In this case, they were calling Branch Presidents and Bishops to find out about issues that their members were struggling with. The person did not ask for any names. He asked generic questions asking if since I’ve been Bishop, have I had a member challenged by women issues, the Church and politics, gay rights, etc? How many people? In the last year have I had a member challenged by those issues? How many people?
I was on the phone with him for about 5 minutes, and then he thanked me for my time and said good bye. He gave no indication what they would do with the information they gathered, or who it was for.
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March 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Interesting. I wonder if asking bishops and branch presidents is really the way to gather this information, though? I’d suppose that a majority of LDS members who were troubled regarding these issues would actually avoid discussing them with their respective bishops or branch presidents.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Hm… that presumes that a bishop or branch president would know a member has an issue. I do, but I wouldn’t tell mine. And I haven’t told anyone when someone I visit teach has that kind of issue. So I think they’re asking the wrong people.
March 6th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
When I was a kid out in the mission field, they sent people out to interview the youth and ask use the issues we struggled with. I think they’ve been doing these kinds of things for a long time. It’s kinda cool.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
This is just one of many different kinds of research that they do. I’m sure they don’t rely on these surveys completely.
As for whether people would answer truthfully or not, I suspect that if people were reluctant to tell their bishop, they’d probably be reluctant to tell a stranger from SLC about their issues.
March 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Nick, they survey other groups. Often they are interested in knowing the difference between what the Bishops are hearing and what they are not.
This kind of survey picks up some very valuable information indeed. Have a little more faith
April 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
[...] of the most read posts so far was on the Church Information Division. Well, the church does more research other than the phone calls I described. They also do basic [...]