HCI 541

Winter 2025

Craig Miller

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Weekly Notes

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10

Assignments

• Assignment 1
• Assignment 2
• Team Project 1
• Team Project 2
• Final Project

Cognitive Interview

Theory of cognitive processes

This is work originating from the Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology (CASM) movement. See Collins (2003) for an overview, based on work by Tourangeau.

Principal components:

• Comprehension
• Retrieval
• Judgement
• Response

Two main techniques

• Think-aloud protocol: ask participant to talk aloud as they answer a survey question
• Verbal probing: follow up with questions:
  • About terms in the survey questions (e.g. What does 'online' mean to you?)
  • About steps in their process (e.g. did you consider more than one answer?)

Discussion questions

• Are are potential drawbacks to asking participants to think aloud? With verbal probing?
• What are variations to the 4-step process?