Cognitive interviewing: verbal data in the design and pretesting of questionnaires

Questionnaire design involves developing wording that is clear, unambiguous and permits respondents successfully to answer the question that is asked. However, a number of problems in relation to respondents' understanding and successfully completing questionnaires have been identified. Cognitive interviewing, an amalgamation of cognitive psychology and survey methodology, has been developed to identify problematic questions that may elicit response error. The overall aim is to use cognitive theory to understand how respondents perceive and interpret questions and to identify potential problems that may arise in prospective survey questionnaires.

A literature review is used to examine the process of questionnaire design and how cognitive interviewing can be used to reduce sampling error and increase questionnaire response rates.