The Loyola College Center for Social and Community Research conducts research commissioned by clients in the public and private sectors. Local and statewide studies use a variety of data collection methods, including mail, telephone, and face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and electronic database accessing. Projects are in the areas of market and advertising research, program evaluations, and public polling.

A multidisciplinary staff enables the Center to undertake research on diverse topics. Faculty come from Advertising, Business, Education, Economics, Health, Marketing, Media, Operations Research, Political Science, Psychology, Statistics, Sociology, and other areas. Technical expertise includes survey and evaluation design, sampling, questionnaire construction, data management, and advanced statistical methods, as well as consulting in the application of research findings in the management of firm operations.

Interviewing capability is based on a large on-call staff of trained and experienced interviewers who are carefully supervised. The Center maintains a centralized telephone interviewing facility consisting of a 24 unit phone bank with on-line data entry terminals. A full set of typesetting, printing, and mailing services are available for mail surveys.

Computer processing services include data entry and verification, statistical analysis, and graphic display. Mainframe and micro systems are available, and raw data can be processed for clients to use on their own systems. Existing client data may also be transferred to the Loyola College operating systems for processing and analysis. The Center's computers support a full range of statistical software, including SPSS, SAS, Minitab, LISREL, etc.