Cognitive Interviewing for Testing Survey Questions

Description:

This one day course is designed to familiarise participants with the powerful and efficient method of piloting survey questions called Cognitive Interviewing. This is a type of in-depth interviewing which focuses on respondents’ thought processes in answering survey questions and uses specialised techniques such as thinking aloud, probing, observation and paraphrasing. The course is about what cognitive interviewing is as well as how to do it.

Objectives

After this course, participants will

• Have an understanding of the range of techniques which make up a cognitive interview
• Have increased their own ability to do cognitive interviewing
• Have a better awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of different aspects of cognitive interviewing.

Course Requirements

Participants should have a basic familiarity with surveys and questionnaires.

Who will benefit?
This course is suitable for people new to cognitive interviewing as well as those who have experience but would like to brush up on their knowledge and skills. It would be particularly appropriate for those who anticipate conducting a survey who wish to learn this powerful tool to pilot their questionnaires. The course stands alone, but participants will benefit from having had a course on questionnaire design.

Course tutor
The day will be led by Dr Pamela Campanelli. Pamela is a Survey Methods Consultant and U.K. Chartered Statistician and Chartered Scientist. She received her Ph.D. in statistics from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. in survey research methods and B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, she was a Research Associate at the at the University of Michigan, a Survey Statistician at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Chief Research Officer at the UK Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, and a Research Director at the Survey Methods Centre at the National Centre for Social Research, London.
Her main interests and publications are in the study of survey error and data quality issues, with special emphasis on questionnaire design, question testing strategies, survey sampling and survey analysis. In addition to her consultancy work and teaching for the SRA, she has lead a UK ESRC grant on survey nonresponse and been a team member of a UK ESRC grant to explore measurement error in mixed mode surveys. She regularly teaches short courses in the UK for the Centre for Applied Social Surveys, the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research, and the Royal Statistical Society. She also provides courses both in the UK and internationally for government departments (e.g., BFS Switzerland), UK Survey Research companies (e.g., TNS), universities (e.g. University of Michigan for Summer Institute), as well as for various other institutions and businesses (e.g., Brazilian Network Information Center; UNESCO Asia Pacific) (see www.thesurveycoach.com).

Cost:

£260 but SRA members pay £195

Website and registration:

www.the-sra.org.uk/training

Region:

Greater London

Keywords:

Quantitative Data Handling and Data Analysis, Cognitive Interviewing

Related publications and presentations:

Quantitative Data Handling and Data Analysis

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