The Prevalence and Nature of Cognitive Interviewing as a Survey Questionnaire Evaluation Method in the United States

Abstract

Abstract We describe the prevalence and nature of cognitive interviewing (CI) for testing survey questionnaires in the United States and compare our results to those from Blair and Presser’s similar study of three decades ago when such testing was relatively new. We find that although CI is now much more common than in 1993, there are still many organizations that do not use it. In addition, we find that there has been only a modest reduction in the great variation of ways CI is conducted both within and across organizations. We interpret this variability mainly as a reflection of the lack of consensus about best practices and call for research that will make consensus about best practices more likely.