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Non-Hispanic (NH) Black, American Indian/Alaska Native (Indigenous), and NH-White men have the highest colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality rates among all other racial/ethnic groups. Contributing factors are multifaceted, yet no studies have examined the psychometric properties of a comprehensive survey examining potential masculinity barriers to CRC screening behaviors among these populations. This study assessed the psychometric properties of our Masculinity Barriers to Medical Care (MBMC) Scale among NH-Black, Indigenous, and NH-White men who completed our web-based MBMC, Psychosocial Factors, and CRC Screening Uptake & Intention Survey. We conducted exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 254 men and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on a separate sample of 637 men nationally representative by age and state of residence. After psychometric assessment, the MBMC scale was reduced from 24 to 18 items and from six to four subscales. NH-Black men’s mean scores were lowest on three of four subscales (Being Strong, Negative and Positive Attitudes) and highest on the Acknowledging Emotions subscale. Compared with both Indigenous and NH-White men, NH-Black men had significantly lower Negative Attitudes subscale scores and significantly higher scores on the Acknowledging Emotions subscale. Compared with both Indigenous and NH-Black men, NH-White men had significantly higher Being Strong and Positive Attitudes subscales scores. This study expands on previous research indicating that, among racialized populations of men, endorsement of traditional masculine ideologies influences engagement in preventive health behaviors. Our scale can be tailored to assess attitudes to screening for other cancers and diseases that disproportionately burden medically underserved populations.

This paper contrasts findings from a quantitative survey with those from a cognitive interviewing follow-up investigation on a subset of the same respondents. The data were gathered as part of a larger study to explore measurement error across three modes of data collection, but this paper focuses on the question format experiments rather than the mode effects part of the larger study. Three examples are presented which demonstrate how cognitive interviewing can cast new light on quantitative results by increasing the accuracy of the inferences made. These include instances where: (1) quantitative indicators of poor respondent behaviour (e.g., acquiescence bias on agree/disagree questions) are over-estimates, (2) similar quantitative response distributions across satisfaction and behavioural questions (from a fully-labelled versus end-labelled experiment) imply similar respondent satisficing behaviour, but cognitive interviews show that different response processes are at work and (3) unlikely quantitative findings (from an experiment comparing 3 vs. 7 or 8 response options) could easily be dismissed as due to chance but were instead the result of unforeseen respondent difficulties. The paper concludes with a discussion of the value of using a cognitive interviewing follow-up study as a tool in the interpretation of ambiguous quantitative findings.

This article focuses on a novel use of cognitive interviewing as a follow-up rather than as a pretesting methodology to explore mode effects. Respondent from a quantitative mixed-mode experiment took part in cognitive interviews where questions were administered face to face, by telephone, and by web, followed by a retrospective think-aloud. The focus of the think-aloud (used in combination with some prescripted probes) was not on what respondents understood by certain words or answer categories but on how they had answered questions in the different data collection modes. This article discusses the methods used in these mixed-mode cognitive interviews (which involved an element of mode mimicking) and how the interviews differed from standard cognitive interviewing for question testing. The benefits and limitations of our approach are discussed as well as lessons learned for using cognitive interviewing to explore patterns observed in survey data.

The conventional wisdom in survey research suggests that it is advisable to have the same interviewers return to the same respondents in order to maintain good response rates in longitudinal surveys. There has been, however, very little documented experimental research to support this. Work conducted by Campanelli and O'Muircheartaigh (1999) using a subsample of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) at Wave 2 with experimental control of the allocation of respondents to interviewers showed no evidence of a positive continuity effect on nonresponse; more extensive analysis by Laurie et al. (1999) of the full BHPS sample using Waves 2 through 4 presents contradictory results. This paper extends the earlier analysis and shows that these differences in findings are due to the lack of experimental control for the inferences from the full BHPS sample in the Laurie et al. (1999) report rather than the shorter time frame considered in Campanelli and O'Muircheartaigh (1999). This paper also considers variation in interviewer continuity effects across areas through the use of multilevel statistical models.

Summary This paper illustrates the use of multilevel statistical modelling of cross-classified data to explore interviewers’ influence on survey non-response. The results suggest that the variability in whole household refusal and non-contact rates is due more to the influence of interviewers than to the influence of areas. The results from separate logistic regression models are compared with the results from multinomial models using a polytomous dependent variable (refusals, non-contacts and responses). Using the cross-classified multilevel approach allows us to estimate correlations between refusals and non-contacts, suggesting that interviewers who are good at reducing whole household refusals are also good at reducing whole household non-contacts.

It is widely known that in practice, different interviewers have different response rates, though there has been no systematic examination of whether this is because of differences among interviewers or differences among those areas allocated to the interviewers (‘area’ effects), or both. Furthermore, the conventional wisdom in survey research suggests that it is advisable to have the same interviewers return to the same respondents in order to maintain good response rates in longitudinal surveys, though once again there has been very little documented experimental research to support this. This paper makes use of the interpenetrated sample design experiment in Wave 2 of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) (i) to explore the effects of interviewers' background characteristics and years of experience on response rates, (ii) to identify and estimate the differential effects of interviewers on response rates and compare the magnitudes of area and interviewer effects, and (iii) to investigate the impact of ‘interviewer continuity’. The analysis is facilitated by the use of cross-classified multilevel modelling. The paper also looks at the issue of interviewer continuity qualitatively, through the impressions of the interviewers themselves.

The paper analysis focuses on the extent to which there is scope for reducing rates of refusal on large-scale household surveys below current standard levels. Our data consisted of over 300 tape-recorded doorstep interactions, drawn from substantive surveys at two different organisations. Tape-recorded interactions were classified in terms of the degree of reluctance expressed by the respondent and the consequent scope for the interviewer to deploy interpersonal skills and persuasion. Interactions where there was both reluctance and scope for persuasion were classified according to whether they resulted in co-operation or refusal and the interviewer tactics associated with the two types of outcome were compared. Conclusions are drawn about the prevalence of different types of interaction and the scope for reducing refusal rates through training interviews to use techniques likely to minimise refusals on the doorstep.

Summary One of the principal sources of error in data collected from structured face-to-face interviews is the interviewer. The other major component of imprecision in survey estimates is sampling variance. It is rare, however, to find studies in which the complex sampling variance and the complex interviewer variance are both computed. This paper compares the relative impact of interviewer effects and sample design effects on survey precision by making use of an interpenetrated primary sampling unit–interviewer experiment which was designed by the authors for implementation in the second wave of the British Household Panel Study as part of its scientific programme. It also illustrates the use of a multilevel (hierarchical) approach in which the interviewer and sample design effects are estimated simultaneously while being incorporated in a substantive model of interest.

Tester les questions d'enquête - Nouvelles perspectives dans l'entretient cognitif. Les quatres articles suivants de ce numéro ont été présentés en premier lieu comme contribution invitées à une session sur les méthodes congnitives dans la construction de questionnaires que l'auteur a organisé lors du Quatrième Conférence Internationale sur la Méthodologie en Sciences Sociales, les 1-5 juillet 1996. à l'Université d'Essex en Angleterre. Cet article fournit une introduction au sujet et un cadre d'interprétation pour les articles qui suivent.

Problèmes pratiques dans la collecte des histoires de vie de travail lors d'une enquête. Cette étude concerne les problèmes cruciaux méthodologiques soulevés par un projet d'enquête des "Vie de travail" au Royaume-Uni. La questions était: comment obtenlr une description détaillée et datée de toutes les étapes constituant l'histoire de vie de travail d'un interviewé avec un maximum de precisions et d'exhaustivité, mais en respectant les contraints d'une enquête par entretient quantitative et standardisée d'une population importante. Suivante une discussion des problèmes pratiques, cette étude présente une enquête empirique de petite taille sur une population représentative. Le premier entretient avec les interviewés a été fait avec un questionnaire hybride récemment développé. Plus tard, un entretien de fond a été fait avec les interviewés en utillsant des démarches cognitives et qualitatives qui doivent maximiser la précision et l'exhaustivité du rapport final sur la vie de travail d'un interviewé. Une comparaison des deux approches suggère que l'enquête quantitative n'a pas saisi 25% des étapes demandées des vies de travail et qu'il était beaucoup plus probable que certains types d'étapes ne soit pas saisi que d'autres. Les points généraux discutés ici comprennent l'utilisation des aides de calendrier, l'envoie d'une lettre préalable, la présence d'une autre personne lors de l'entretien, la disponibilité de documents externes de "validation", l'effet de la longueur de l'entretien sur la qualité des données, et les problèmes et Implications de la collecte d'autres types d'histories de vie pendant les mêmes entretiens. Quol que le centre d'lntêrêt de cette etude était le souvenir d'emplois et d'autres événements et étapes d'un histoire de vie de travail, nous croyons que les résultats et leur interprétation sont importants par rapport à la collecte d'autres types d'histoires de vie.