THE PROPER USE OF SELF-REPORT QUESTIONS IN EFFECTIVE MEASUREMENT OF HEALTH OUTCOMES

Outcomes research often relies on the use of general population survey data. The recent efforts to employ cognitive science theory in the de velopment of data collection instruments has led to the establishment of new questionnaire design research methods. Intensive cognitive tech niques are used in laboratory interviews to develop and pretest self-r eport survey questions with the goal of reducing nonsampling response error. This article presents the theoretical and applied approach used in the cognitive laboratory to study the ways people respond to surve ys, and offers guidelines for improving self-report survey questions.