Asking Questions About Behavior: Cognition, Communication, and Questionnaire Construction

Evaluation researchers frequently obtain self-reports of behaviors, asking program participants to report on process and outcome-relevant behaviors. Unfortunately, reporting on one’s behavior poses a difficult cognitive task, and participants’ reports can be profoundly influenced by question wording, format, and context. We review the steps involved in answering a question about one’s behavior and highlight the underlying cognitive and communicative processes. We alert researchers to what can go wrong and provide theoretically grounded recommendations for pilot testing and questionnaire construction.