The Cognitive Interviewing Reporting Framework (CIRF) Towards the Harmonization of Cognitive Testing Reports

Cognitive interviewing is an important qualitative tool for the testing, development, and evaluation of survey questionnaires. Despite the widespread adoption of cognitive testing, there remain large variations in the manner in which specific procedures are implemented, and it is not clear from reports and publications that have utilized cognitive interviewing exactly what procedures have been used, as critical details are often missing. Especially for establishing the effectiveness of procedural variants, it is essential that cognitive interviewing reports contain a comprehensive description of the methods used. One approach to working toward more complete reporting would be to develop and adhere to a common framework for reporting these results. In this article we introduce the Cognitive Interviewing Reporting Framework (CIRF), which applies a checklist approach, and which is based on several existing checklists for reviewing and reporting qualitative research. We propose that researchers apply the CIRF in order to test its usability and to suggest potential adjustments. Over the longer term, the CIRF can be evaluated with respect to its utility in improving the quality of cognitive interviewing reports.