The Census Bureau plans to conduct research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). This is a joint project between the Census Bureau and the National Cancer Institute. Cognitive interviews will be conducted to evaluate a set of questions on health and demographic topics with English and Chinese respondents.
The research will have several aims:
to examine how speakers of English and Chinese languages understand and respond to the health and demographic questions;
to identify and document problems associated with the translation of specific terms and concepts contained in these questions;
to identify a set of linguistic features that can aid the interpretation of cognitive testing results and systematic analysis of cognitive testing data in languages other than English; and
to experiment on the optimal number of cognitive interviews for questionnaire pretesting in non-English languages.
The cognitive interview results will inform possible revisions to the translations of the health questions and demographic questions tested, and will help the Census Bureau and the National Cancer Institute to improve cognitive testing techniques to test translations of census and survey questions in languages other than English.
From early March 2009 through the end of August 2009, approximately 80 cognitive interviews will be conducted by a contractor, staff from the Center for Survey Methods Research (CSMR) at the Census Bureau, and staff from the National Cancer Institute. Enclosed with this letter are the English version of the questionnaire to be tested and the interview protocol. Of the 80 interviews, 40 will be in English, and 40 will be in Chinese. We will be targeting three groups of respondents in our recruiting efforts:
monolingual English speakers;
monolingual Chinese speakers; and
bilingual speakers of Chinese and English.
The Chinese respondents will be from a variety of educational level backgrounds and will vary by the amount of time they have lived in the United States, by age and by gender. The English respondents will be comparable to the Chinese respondents in terms of educational level, age, and gender.
Respondents will be recruited through flyers, newspaper advertisements, and through the contractor’s ties to local ethnic communities in the Greater Washington, DC area, and Chicago, IL area. Interviews will be conducted at the offices of community organizations used to recruit respondents, at local public facilities or locations convenient to interviewees, and at the cognitive labs of the Census Bureau.
Interviews will be conducted using the concurrent think-aloud method, and other cognitive interviewing techniques. Interviews will be audio-taped, with participants’ permission, to facilitate analysis of the results. Participants will be informed that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by employees involved in the research project. Participants will receive $40 for their participation in this research.
We estimate that these interviews will take approximately one hour. Thus, the total estimated burden for this research is 80 hours.
The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:
Yuling Pan
Center for Survey Methods Research
Statistical Research Division
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road
Washington, D.C. 20233
(301) 763-4950
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | The Census Bureau plans to conduct research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0 |
| Author | Bureau Of The Census |
| Last Modified By | Bureau Of The Census |
| File Modified | 2009-03-02 |
| File Created | 2009-03-02 |