Blending Methodologies in Cognitive Interviews and IDIs to Examine Perceptions of Jobs and Work: Advantages and Caveats
Bernard L. Dugoni
NORC at the University of Chicago
Tom W. Smith
NORC at the University of Chicago
Survey researchers frequently employ cognitive interviews to examine and refine questionnaire items prior to their use in the main study of a research project. In Depth Interviews (IDIs) are often used to follow-up on surveys following data collection in order to ask probe questions similar to those used in cognitive interviews with the intent of getting a more thorough look at the differences observed and problems encountered. Both techniques are exploratory in nature and are useful in identifying potential areas of focus for more structured, larger scale work. In the most recent round of the General Social Survey (GSS), we were able to combine these techniques to look at an approach to the wording of questions regarding perceptions of work and jobs. This approach explores differences in earlier studies using current, purposively sampled respondents to study potential drivers of those differences. A version of the "split-ballot" technique from cognitive interviewing was combined with in-depth follow-up probes from IDIs to explore potential differences in perception. The results are discussed in terms of consistency with previous literature.