Cognitive Interviews in Second Life and Skype

Cognitive interviewing is a commonly used questionnaire pretesting method designed to evaluate the cognitive properties of survey instruments as sources of potential measurement error. …

Cognitive interview studies provide rich sources of data on questionnaire problems, but are labor and cost intensive due to time required to recruit and interview (often 1-2 hours) participants and to analyze the qualitative data provided in the interviews. …

A potential solution to cost and logistical challenges of cognitive interviews is the use of virtual communication technologies. We piloted a study of using Second Life and Skype to conduct cognitive interviews. [cont.]

Elizabeth Dean, RTI