Abstract
J.L. Esposito, P.C. Campanelli, J. Rothgeb, and A.E. Polivka (1991) "Determining Which Questions
Are Best: Methodologies for Evaluating Survey Questions," Proceedings
of the Section on Survey Research Methods, American Statistical
Association, 46-55.
Various techniques have been developed over the years to
pretest new survey questions or to evaluate the effectiveness
of preexisting questions. As part of the current effort to
redesign the Current Population Survey (CPS), researchers
from Census and BLS are using a variety of methods to
evaluate questions designed to elicit accurate labor force
data and to assess the quality of interviewer-respondent
interactions. These methods include: (a) the coding of
interviewer and respondent behavior, (b) debriefing
respondents to obtain additional information about how they
view CPS questions/concepts, and (c) debriefing interviewers
on how respondents react to and understand CPS
questions/concepts, and (d) comparing item nonresponse rates
and response distributions for different versions of the same
survey questions. This paper describes the advantages and
disadvantages of each of these techniques. The discussion is
illustrated with selected results from a CATI/RDD test.
To receive a copy of this paper (usually within 3-5 days), please contact Jim Esposito by phone or voice mail (202-691-6368), by e-mail (Esposito.Jim@bls.gov), or by mailing your request to:
James L. Esposito
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Postal Square Building, Room 4985
2 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Washington, DC, 20212
Last Modified Date: July 19, 2008
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