Get Updates
Debra L. Wright
Senior Researcher
Debra Wright is a senior survey researcher who specializes in the design and direction of large-scale multimode and longitudinal surveys. She has particular expertise in studies that survey vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations, such as low-income families and individuals with disabilities.
Wright is currently the project director for the National Beneficiary Survey, a four-year evaluation of the Ticket to Work (TTW) program for the Social Security Administration (SSA). The survey collects data from a nationally representative sample of approximately 10,000 SSA disability beneficiaries each round and a longitudinal sample of TTW participants.
She is also associate project director of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics. This collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research aims to develop a research and training center on policies that influence employment of people with disabilities. As part of this project, Wright is designing and implementing experiments to improve methods used to interview people with disabilities.
Wright is the author of several papers on multimode data collection methodologies and the impact of survey mode on responses to sensitive questions. She is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and has co-chaired the Federal Computer-Assisted Survey Information Collection Conference session on Multimode Surveys for the past four years. Wright holds a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Less Detail More DetailStaff Profile
- Areas of Expertise
- Key Projects
- Professional Activities
- Publications
- Design and direction of large-scale multimode and longitudinal surveys
- Studies that survey vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations, such as low-income families and individuals with disabilities
- Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics
- Exploration of Low-Income Couple’s Decision-Making Processes
- National Beneficiary Survey
- Session Co-Chair, Multimode Surveys, Federal Computer Assisted Survey Information Collection Conference
- Member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research
- "Is There a Trade-off Between Quality and Cost? Telephone Versus Face-to-Face Interviewing of Persons with Disabilities" (February 2012)
- "Exploratory Study of Decision-Making in Low-Income Couples" (December 2010)
- "Phone or Face-to-Face? Comparing Data from Surveys of People with Disabilities." Trends in Data Collection Methods Issue Brief #4 (May 2010)