Mixing Pretest Methods of Structured Questionnaires

“Mixed Methods” is considered a new paradigm for new answers to the never-ending debate between quantitative and qualitative sociology (Morgan 2007; Tashakkori and Teddlie 2010). Nowadays, social researchers use this methodological approach in many research stages: the theoretical framework design, the data collection, the data analysis, etc. (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004; Feilzer 2010; Small 2011), but few scholars explore explore the usefulness of Mixed Methods for pretesting questionnaires (Mauceri 2018). In this paper, we present the results of a pretest strategy based on mixed methods approach. • Does the mixed-methods-pretest increase the number and the types of problems usually diagnosed by a mono-method-pretest modus operandi? • How quantitative and qualitative pretest methods can be mixed? In this study, three methods have been employed to pretest a questionnaire designed to investigate the attitudes towards immigrants: expert review, cognitive interview, verbal interaction coding. At the beginning we have used the expert review to locate the main problems afflicting the questionnaire. Then, the cognitive interview has been adopted to inquiry the cognitive processes of respondents involved in closed-ended question answering. Finally, we have used the verbal interaction coding to analyze the verbal interaction between interviewer and respondent in a real interview context. Offering different points of view over the problems concerning the questionnaire, the three pretest methods have allowed us to conceive solutions for the questionnaire biases taking into account different aspects of the interview process.