Kirsten Miller gave a presentation about survey question design based on her work at the Question Design Research Lab at the National Center for Health Statistics. Her talk was given at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois on February 13, 2012. This event was sponsored by the DePaul College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the Social Science Research Center, and the Department of Sociology. Audio from the presentation can be heard here: http://is.gd/ssrc_kmiller

2. Data come from Questions

4. Bad questions can mess up your findings (in potentially embarrassing ways)

5. Women: BMI by ‘Sexual Orientation’ 2002 NSFG HETEROSEXUAL HOMOSEXUAL BISEXUAL Normal 49.7 30.5 48.5 Overweight 25.6 35.3 29.6 Obese 24.7 34.2 22.0 2006 NSFG STRAIGHT OR HETEROSEXUAL GAY OR LESBIAN OR HOMOSEXUAL BISEXUAL Normal 40.7 38.2 36.5 Overweight 26.5 33.0 19.5 Obese 32.8 28.8 44.0

16. Question Response Process Retrieval Comprehension Judgment Response Social Factors Social Factors Social Factors Social Factors Social Factors Social Factors Social Factors

22. Chronic Conditions

30. Overall, during the past 4 weeks, how much difficulty did you have with thinking clearly and solving daily problems? Respondent 5 Respondent 2 Respondent 6 Respondent 3 Respondent 4 Respondent 1 Alzheimer’s disease Busy Long term, medical problem Specific experience- organizing tennants Remembering detailed list Fiscal functioning

38. Example: Anxiety UNESCAP/Washington Group Project

39. Anxiety Questions Frequency: How often do you feel worried, nervous or anxious? Daily, weekly, monthly, a few times a year, or never? Intensity: Thinking about the last time you felt anxious, how would you describe the level of anxiety? Mild, moderate or severe?

45. Anxiety: Frequency

46. Anxiety: Intensity

47. Anxiety: Joint distribution of anxiety frequency and intensity A few times a year Monthly Weekly Daily DK/REF A little 1087 423 328 214 1 Closer to a little 35 25 27 12 0 In between 122 85 95 59 0 Closer to a lot 22 16 39 33 0 A lot 163 86 122 259 0 DK/REF 22 3 3 7 1 Note. Polychoric correlation = .42

49. Percentage of Reporting Anxiety Characteristics

50. Anxiety Percent reporting various descriptions of anxiety by country Kazakhstan Cambodia Sri Lanka Maldives Mongolia Philippines Out-of-Scope, Not Valid Interpretations Positive 50.3% 47.8% 12.6% 51.7% 82.5% 32.4% Normal 81.5 71.3 75.4 86.7 85.7 81.2 In-Scope, Valid Interpretations Chest hurts 21.4 72.3 30.9 37.0 50.6 20.3 Interfere 52.2 65.0 85.4 54.8 72.8 33.5 Clinical 11.8 16.8 3.0 28.4 18.6 11.5 Note. Chi-square p <.05 for all rows in the table.

51. “ Validity” by countries