National Center for Health Statistics

The Collaborating Center for Questionnaire Design and Evaluation Research (CCQDER) conducts question evaluation and development studies for the National Center for Health Statistics, the CDC, and other HHS surveys. The primary method of evaluation is cognitive interviewing, although a range of other qualitative and quantitative methods, including focus groups, ethnographic methodology, and experimental web surveys, are also used. Question evaluation studies seek to identify patterns of interpretation, various forms of response error, and problems of question comparability across respondent groups.