Cognitive Interviewing Methodology

6 Conveying Results

VALERIE CHEPP

Hamline University

PAUL SCANLON

National Center for Health Statistics

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Conveying research results is a necessary part of the scientific process because it documents, in a transparent way, how research findings are attained. This includes a detailed discussion of how data are collected and analyzed, and how conclusions are drawn. By documenting research findings and making them available to a wider public, stakeholders are able to assess the quality of the empirical data produced. One way researchers convey results is by making their findings available to the scientific community through reports, journal articles, and other forms of published material. Given that cognitive interviewing practitioners and audiences tend to work in applied settings, cognitive interviewing results are typically written up in a report format for an audience of survey professionals. The aim of cognitive interviewing reports is to present findings on how survey questions perform. By presenting these findings, as well as providing information on methodological issues raised or discovered during a testing project, cognitive interviewing reports also help readers obtain specific information about how a new questionnaire testing project can be designed in order to build on the results of previous projects. Depending on the goal(s) of the cognitive interviewing study (see Chapter 3), reports can focus on different aspects of question performance, including ...