Using Cognitive Interviews to Improve Survey Instruments

Heather Haeger, Indiana UniversityAmber Lambert, Indiana University-

BloomingtonJillian Kinzie, Indiana University-

BloomingtonJames Gieser, Indiana University

Presented at the Association for Institutional Research Forum

June 2-6, 2012

Agenda• Introduction

• Conceptual Framework

• Methods

• Findings

• Conclusion and Discussion

Current Context• Pressure to assess educational

practices remains high• Crucial to ensure that instruments

accurately measure educational practices and experiences o Questionnaires must measure what they

intend; respondents must understand & correctly interpret items

• NSSE’s widespread use (1,500 institutions) makes it particularly important to rigorously subject items to cognitive research testing

Context for NSSE’s Cognitive Interviews

• Cognitive Interviews (CI) part of NSSE survey design from outset• Focus in 2005 to test survey among historically under-represented students• Planned NSSE update for 2013 provided occasion for multiple rounds of CIs

• Purpose of cognitive interviewsoIdentify and analyze sources of

response error

• FocusoCognitive processes

oAccess respondents

interpretation & meaning of items

Purpose

• In brief, cognitive interviews are meant to identify…oWhether subjects understand the

question…o In a way consistent across

subjects…oAnd in the way intended by

researchers.

Purpose (cont.)

• Four actions of the cognitive process:oComprehend the questionoRetrieve informationoMake a judgment about relevance and

accuracyoFormulate and provide a response

Background

• “Think-aloud”o Explicit activity in which the subject

verbalizes, his/her thought processes as s/he answers survey questions. • Interviewer reads the question, then observes and

records as the subject responds. • Interviewer is mainly passive in process, aside from

providing encouragement to “tell me what you’re thinking” if s/he hesitates or pauses.

o Advantages: Freedom from bias imposed by frequent interviewer interjections; minimal interviewer training requirements; open-ended design.

o Disadvantages: Subject usually requires training in method, or may resist technique; possibility for subject to stray from the topic at hand; subject may bias his/her description of his/her decision processing.

Methods

• Verbal probing: concurrent and retrospectiveo Concurrent: after interviewer asks a question and

subject answers, interviewer asks more specific questions designed to elicit further information about the response. Probes can be scripted or spontaneous.

o Retrospective: at the end of interview, subject is asked to verbalize their thoughts about questions answered earlier when taking the questionnaire.

o Advantages: Interviewer maintains control of the interview; relative ease of training the subject.

o Disadvantages: Artificiality – criticism that this technique is not reflective of a real survey interview, in which interviewer simply asks questions and respondent answers them; potential for bias through poor selection of probes.

Methods (cont.)

Analysis3 stages and related sub-stages that respondents faced during cognitive interviews:

1) Understanding the survey question and response options

a) Comprehending the survey questionb) Comprehending the response options

2) Performing the primary survey tasksa) Retrieving informationb) Deduction; making conclusions about

informationc) Mental arithmetic computation

3) Formatting responses a) Mapping data yielded by primary task

processes to an explicit response optionb) Response option is not available/offered

Coding within these stages can address any of the following problems:

oLanguage problemso Inclusion/exclusion problemsoTemporal problems  oLogical problemsoComputational problems

Types of Problems

Question: In your experience at your institution during the current school year, about how often have you had serious conversations with people who differ from you in the following ways? (Never, Sometimes, Often, Very Often)

Example 1

a) Political views, b) Economic and social background, c) Religious beliefs or philosophy of life, d) Race, ethnic background, or country of origin, e) Sexual orientation

• Language Problemo Too wordy, too complexoDiversity of interpretation• Talked with people who are different• Talked with people who are different but only about that topic• Talked about that topic with anyone

• Logic problemoSerious conversations + people who are

different from you + in the following ways

Example 1 (cont.)

Question: Indicate the quality of your interactions with the following people at your institution: a) Student Affairs Professional

Example 2

• Language problemo Not knowing what a Student Affairs Professional waso Wording was changed to “Student services staff

(campus activities, housing, career services, etc.)”

• Inclusion/exclusion problemo Students were including everyone

• Added parenthetical to help narrow focuso This raises a question for researchers: are we ok with

students thinking broadly about this question (e.g. including dining hall staff and campus security staff)?

• Formatting problemo Response options ranged from Poor=1 to Excellent=7o Need to add an NA option

Example 2 (cont.)

Question: During the current school year, in about how many of your courses did you do the following?

Example 3

Participated in a community-based project as part of a regular course (i.e., service-learning)

• Language problemoThis problem was site specific

• Inclusion/Exclusion problemoStudents wondered what activities to include • What counts as a “community-based” activity, and what did we mean by “community” (campus only? Surrounding neighbor/town too? Elsewhere in US/overseas?) • Some students thought of volunteering on their own, not in connection to a particular course

Example 3 (cont.)

Question: Which of the following have you done or do you plan to do before you graduate from your institution?

Example 4

Participate in a formal program where groups of students take two or more classes together (sometimes called a learning community)

• Language problemo As with service learning, students’ understanding

of this question was also site specific

• Formatting problemo Location on survey made students less likely to

complete the item if they didn’t understand itoSolution: We restructured where the item

appeared in the instrument• We moved the item lower on the page (it

originally was the first question at the top of the page)• We moved the item lower within the question

itself (it originally was the first item in series of 6 sub-questions

Example 4 (cont.)

Question: In a typical week this year, about how many total pages have you read for all of your courses?

Example 5

• Computation problem o Difficult for students to compute number

of pages, especially if sources didn’t have page numbers (e.g. web pages, e-readers)

• Inclusion Exclusion problemo Many students didn’t count readings in

non-traditional book format (e.g. readings online, lab reports)

o Some students counted what they actually had read, but some said that they counted all the pages assigned in the course, even those that they had not actually read.

Example 5 (cont.)

Applications to Your Campus

• How might these methods help triangulate NSSE results on your campus?

• What questions are you most concerned about in terms of what your students mean by their responses?

• Are there item terms that may have less face validity with your student populations?

• How might it help to know more about students’ interpretations of response option in terms of what to do with findings?

• How might you initiate this activity on your campus? Who might be interested in this work? Who should conduct the interviews?

Conclusion • Cognitive interviews and focus

groups can provide students an opportunity to reflect on their behaviors in college• Institutions gain concrete

information about THEIR students experiences, perceptionso Can then be more explicit about opportunities

and academic services of which students can take advantage

Contact Information

• Heather Haeger – email: hahaeger@indiana.edu• Amber D. Lambert – email:

adlamber@indiana.edu• Jillian Kinzie– email:

jikinzie@indiana.edu• James Gieser – email:

jgieser@indiana.edu

Introducing Updated NSSE!

• Retains NSSE’s focus on diagnostic & actionable information

• New Engagement Indicatorso Academic challengeo Deep approaches to learningo Collaborative learningo Quantitative reasoningo Experiences with facultyo Campus environmento Interactions with diversity

• Modules• New & Updated Items• Comparisons to Prior-Year

Results• FSSE & BCSSE Updates

Register Now for NSSE 2013

(deadline Sept. 25)