Focus Groups and Cognitive Interviews

CSR conducts focus groups, both as a primary data collection mechanism and as a step in the questionnaire development process. We have conducted focus groups with many special populations, including physicians, cancer patients, parents of disabled children, as well as general population groups. In addition, a number of our research staff as well as our interviewers are trained to conduct in-depth cognitive interviews to understand how respondents answer survey questions. The goal of these activities is to determine whether or not drafted questions present tasks that respondents can perform, are consistently understood in the way they were intended, are measuring what they're designed to measure, and can be administered in a standardized way.

Methodological Research

As academic researchers, we are engaged not only in using survey techniques to collect data, but also in providing information about the survey process itself. We are continually examining our own data collection methods and procedures to ensure that our interviews are of high quality and state-of-the-art and that our response rates are as high as possible. Our methodological studies include an investigation of the effects of variations in the interviewer training and supervision on the nature and quality of data obtained in survey interviews; a study designed to assess alternative methods of offering Spanish-language instruments to a Medicaid population; a study of the impact of automated self-interviewing on the reports of smoking among youth; and a study of the determinants of obtaining parental permission to interview youth.

Interviewer Training and
Quality Control in Data Collection

Quality control has been a special focus at CSR. All interviewers receive a minimum of four days of general initial training plus study-specific training at the initiation of each study. As part of training, interviewers have to pass several written tests, including one after the first 100 hours of production work, as well as review of a tape-recorded interview. Samples of all phone interviewers' work are systematically monitored. On each shift on which they work, a supervisor gives them a rating on standardized interviewing skills. Working on the telephone at CSR involves continuous evaluation and learning. Our telephone facility gives us the capacity to monitor any interviewer at any time. Field interviewers' work is also routinely checked by the Field Supervisor by calls or visits to a sub-sample of each interviewer's cases.