DIAGNOSTICS FOR REDESIGNING SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES - MEASURING WORK INTHE CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY

Between 1986 and 1993, a program of questionnaire design and cognitive research was conducted by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Stati stics, to improve labor force measurements in the Current Population S urvey (CPS). As part of the research program, diagnostic measures for systematically testing and evaluating alternative questionnaire versio ns were developed and applied. This article reports results of applyin g two methods, special follow-up probes and hypothetical vignettes, to the measurement of ''work'' in the CPS. These measures provided both direct and indirect information about problems of respondent comprehen sion and reporting errors. In this article, we analyze results using t hese diagnostic measures to evaluate the effect of questionnaire revis ions on reporting of work activities, and we assess the consistency an d usefulness of the information provided by alternative diagnostic mea sures for pretesting and selecting questions.