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Cognitive Aspects of
Survey Methodology:
Building a Bridge
Between Disciplines
Report of the Advanced Research Seminar on
Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology
Thomas B. Jabine, Miron L. Straf.
Judith M. Tanur. and Roger Tourangeau
Editors
Committee on National Statistics
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
National Research Council
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C. 1984
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NOTICE: lrhe pro ject that is the sub ject of this report was approved by
the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are
drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine . lathe members of
the commit tee responsible for the report were chosen for their special
competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors
according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting
of members of the Nat tonal Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of
Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The Nat tonal Research Council was establ ished by the National Academy of
Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and
technology with the Academy' ~ purposes of furthering knowledge and of
advising the federal government . I he Council operates in accordance with
general policies determined by the Academy under the authority of its
congressional charter of 1863, which established the Academy as a
private, nonprofit, self-governing membership corporation. The Council
has become the principal operating agency of both the Nat ~ anal Academy of
Sciences and the Nat tonal Academy of Engineering in the conduct of their
services to the government, the public, and the scientific and
engineering communities. It is administered Jointly by both Academies
and the Institute of Medicine. lathe National Academy of Engineering and
the Institute of Medicine were established in 1964 and 1970,
respectively, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences.
Available from:
Committee on National Statistics
Nat tonal Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D . C . 204 ~ ~
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
PARTICIPANTS AND GUESTS, ADVANCED RESEARCH SEMINAR ON COGNITIVE
ASPECTS OF SURVEY METHODOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1 THE SEMINAR
Background, ~
Introduction, 3
Surveys as a Vehicle for Cognitive Research, 6
Improving Survey Methods, TO
Issues for the National Health Interview Survey, 21
CHAPTER 2 AFTER THE SEMINAR
Laboratory-Based Research on the Cognitive Aspects of
Survey Methodology, 26
Center for Health Statistics
(Monroe Sirken and Robert Fucheberg)
Cognitive Processes in Survey Responding: Project
Summaries, 35
Roger Tourangeau, William Salter, Roy D'Andrade,
Normal 8radburn, and associates
The Intersection of Personal and National History, 38
Howard Schuman and Philip Converse
A Proposal for the Development of a National Memory
Inventory, 44
Endel Tulving and S. James Press
Protocol Analysis of Responses to Survey Recall
Questions, 61
Elizabeth Loftus
Thoughts and Research on Estimates About Past and
Future Behavior, 65
Lee Ross
Outreach Activities, 69
iii
vii
ix
1
25
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APPENDIX A BACKGROUND PAPERS
Cognit ive Sciences and Survey Methods, 73
Roger Tourangeau
Potential Contributions of Cognitive Research to Survey
Questionnaire Design, ~ O ~
Norman Bradburn and Catalina Danis
Record Checks for Sample Surveys, ~ 30
Kent Marquis
APPENDIX B DESIGNING AND BUILDING THE BRIDGE
APPENDIX C BACKGROUND MATERIALS FOR THE SEMINAR
APPENDIX D BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PARTICIPANTS
INDEX
71
149
157
165
171
iv
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ADVANCED RESEARCH SEMINAR ON
COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF SURVEY METHODOLOGY
PARTICIPANTS
JUDITH M. TANUR (Chair), Department of Sociology, State University of New
York, Stony Brook
NORMAN M. BRADBURN, National Opinion Research Center, Chicago
PHILIP E. CONVERSE, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
ROY G. D'ANDRADE, Department of Anthropology, University of Cal if ornia,
San Diego
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG, Department of Statistics, Carne~;ie-Mellon University
ROBERT F,UCHSBERG, National Center for Health Statistics, (t, S. Department
of Health and Human Services
THOMAS B. JABINE, Consultant, Committee on National Statistics
WILLETT KEMPTON, Institute of Psychology, university of Washington
ALBERT MADANSKY, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago
ROBERT MANGOLD, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce
KENT MARQUIS, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Co~erce
ANDREW ORTONY, Center for the Study of Reading, University of. Illinois
S. JAMES PRESS, Department of Statistics, University of California,
Riverside
LEE ROSS, Department of Psychology, Stanford University
LILLIAN J. SALTER, Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Inc.
HOWARD SCHUMAN, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
MONPOE (I. SIRKEN, National Center for Health Statistics, U. S. Department
of Health and Human Services
ANNE M. SPRAGUE, Administrative Secretary, Committee on National
Statistics
MIRON L. STRAP, Research Director, Committee on National Statistics
ROGER TOURANGEAU, National Opinion Research Cent er, New York
ENDEL TUL1JING, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Biographical sketches of seminar participants appear in Appendix D.
GUESTS
MURRAY ABORN, National Science Foundation
EARL F. BRYANT, National Center for Health Statistics, IJ. S. Department of
Heal th and Human Serv ices
v
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JACOB J. FELDMAN, National Center for Health Statistics, U. S. Department
of Health and Human Services
GARY G. ROCH, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina
DAWN W. NELSON, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce
SARA B. NERLOVE, National Science Foundation
ROBERT PEARSON' Social Science Research Council
PHILLIP STONE, Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard
University
RA1lIERINE K. WALLMAN, Council of Professional Associ ations on Federal
Statistics
THOMAS C. WALSH, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce
vi
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COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG (Chair), Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon
University
LEO BREIMAN, Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley
JOEL E. COHEN, Laboratory of Populations, The Rockefeller University
WAYNE A. FULLER, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
F. THOMAS JUSTER, Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan
GARY G. KOCH, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina
PAUL METER, Department of Statistics, University of Chicago
JANE A. MENKEN, Office of Population Research, Princeton University
LINCOLN E. MOSES, Department of Statistics, Stanford University
JOHN W. PRATT, Graduate School of Busi ness, Harvard University
CHRISTOPHER A. SIMS, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
BURTON H. SINGER, Department of Statistics, Columbia University
COURTENAY M. SLATER, CEC Associates, Washington, D. C.
JUDITH M. TALUS, Department of Sociology, State University of New York
at Stony Brook
EDWIN D. GOLDFIELD, Executive Director
MIRON L. STRAP, Research Director
Hi
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PREFACE
Cross-disciplinary collaboration is difficult. Practitioners from
different disciplines could be said to live in different cultures. They
see different things as important (or trivial); they use different
research techniques; they have different backgrounds of understood and
taken-for-granted knowledge; and they have knowledge of different
specific languages in which the specialized terms of one discipline may
be meaningless to another--or worse, have well-defined but differing
meanings in the other discipline. Thus the comingling of disciplines can
give rise to culture shock, resulting in either bewilderment and apathy
or in ethnocentrism, but in either case yielding communication failure
and resulting frustration. Yet Boat of us agree that collaboration
between pract it loners trained in different disciplines can engender
research projects that have exceptional promise, both for enriching the
cultures of the parent disciplines and for creating a hybrid culture that
attains its own viability and establishes its own research tradition.
But how are the cultural barriers between disciplines to be overcome?
The following pages report on what we consider an experiment in
encouraging crosn-disciplinary collaboration. While the Advanced
Research Seminar on Cognitive Aspects of Surrey Methodology--CAS`-was
surely not an experiment in the statistical sense of the term, consonant
with the cros-Q-disciplinary awns of the project, we shall continue to
call it an experiment.
The results of the experiment are not Yet in.
Indeed we shall have
to wait some yearn to see whether a whole new rhea arisen; only a few
project ~ are carried out; or the seminar becomes merely a fond memory for
the participants, little influencing their own work or that of others.
But the early prospects for our results seem bright. The body of this
report sketches many ideas for collaborative research that arose during
the seminar and outlines some more fully formed projects that CASH
participants plan to undertake. We hope that these are only the first
artifacts of the comingled culture created by the seminar. Thus, while
we are not yet able to state definitively whether our experiment was a
success or something less, we can see already that some progress has been
made in disciplinary cro~-fertilization. We present these results in
the hope that readers will see the new field as one in which they might
wish to carry out research and perhaps even take up some of our ideas.
We have been reporting on the seminar at trar'ous professional meetings
ix
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and In various journals, as outlined at the end of Chapter 2. We are
proselytizing.
Further, we hope that readers planning other cross-disciplinary
endeavors may find in our experiment some guidance for procedures. To
this end, Appendix B of our report details the steps we took and the
ingredients we sought in order to maximize the possibility of a favorable
result of our experiment. Let me briefly sketch those steps and
ingredients here.
Clearly, the most important ingredient is the people who
participated in the experiment. Our effort had the benefit of
participation by top-flight researchers in several of the cognitive
sciences, survey methodology, and applied statistics, as well as
dedicated participants from the government agencies involved--the Bureau
of the Census and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)--and
an enormously competent staff. (Note that these categories are by no
means mutually exclusive; see Appendix D for biographical sketches of
participants.)
Second, what is needed is willingness to work hard and time in which
to get the work done. Staff devoted much time before the meeting of the
seminar to inviting participants, to assembling (and in some cases,
preparing) background material, and to detailed and careful planning and
coordination of an agenda and of social events. During the seminar,
their efforts an rapporteurs kept all participants informed of everyone's
progress. Participants were asked to give time beforehand to familiarize
themselves with the background materials, to spend almost a week together
at the seminar, to spend time after the seminar reviewing draft reports
and writing up research plane, and to reassemble seven months later to
review their progress. (See Appendix A for the background papers prepared
for the seminar and Appendix C for a list of other background materials.)
A third ingredient is what might be called the ambiance of the
seminar meeting. We were together first in an attractive setting, St.
Michaels, Maryland, many miles both from our offices and urban
distractions or other intellectual intrusions. Our discussion~--formal
and informal--often continued late into the night. Feelings of trust,
intellectual respect, friendship, and tolerance for idiosyncrasies grew,
and with them the excitement of shared research ideas and prospects. We
had been warned that people from different disciplines would not listen
to each other, but we developed a vocabulary that made cross-disciplinary
communication not only possible but inviting; the image of a newly formed
common culture is only slightly exaggerated. One example of the
acculturation is supplied by a participant who Joined the enterprise with
a research agenda that was advertised an unalterable by any outcome of
the seminar. By the time the seminar reconvened in Baltimore six months
later, this participant had actually carried out research to test some
ideas generated at St. Michaels.
Thus we feel we can write a prescription to maximize the chances of
success in cron~-disciplinary collaboration. Through the support and
vision of the National Science Foundation (especially from Murray Aborn)
and the efforts of members and staff of the Committee on National
Statistics (especially chair Stephen Fienberg and Miron Straf), together
with an informal group of advisers (who came to be known as friends of
the seminar and included, especially, Robert Abelson and Phillip Stone),
x
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we were able to assemble an excellent group of participants. Detailed
planning (by all of those already listed and especially by Tom Jabine and
the authors of the formal background papers--Norman Bradburn, Catalina
Danis, and Roger Tourangeau) provided an appropriate and stimulating
agenda for the participants. Preparatory work by the NCHS in supplying
background materials and the survey instruments for the National Health
Interview Survey and by the Census Bureau in interviewing participants
gave us further common experiences to draw upon in our discussions. The
participants themselves worked very hard in an atmosphere ideally
conducive to the encouragement of cross-disciplinary collaboration. The
volunteer respondents who consented to the videotaping of an interview
using the NHIS questionnaire must remain anonymous and thus cannot be
singled out for thanks. They should know, neverthe~ ess, that their
contribution was invaluable in providing the participants with a shared
resource that was used repeatedly in our discussions. All of these
contributors--and others too numerous to mention but who were enormously
helpful--receive heartfelt thanks from me as chair of the seminar. My
fond hope is that their efforts will be so successful that they will also
earn the gratitude of practitioners of the new cross-disciplinary
research tradition they will have helped to start.
Judith M. Tanur
Montauk, New York
June 14, 1984
xi
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