Developing a scale of communicative participation: A cognitive interviewing study

Purpose. To revise and improve the instructions, candidate items and response format for a tool to measure communicative participation.Method. Cognitive interviewing techniques, designed to study the process that respondents use to answer survey questions, were used to test a bank of candidate items for a measure of communicative participation. Twelve participants with spasmodic dysphonia (SD), a neurologic condition characterized by voice and speech changes, were asked to complete a sample questionnaire and then were interviewed regarding the clarity of instructions, candidate items and response format. Analysis of the interviews was conducted using qualitative techniques and resulted in a series of modifications to the measurement tool.Results. Problems identified related to candidate items included inadequate context, double-barreled or ambiguous items, redundancy, unclear or generally confusing items, infrequent situations, and cultural sensitivity. Participants preferred response options that asked t...