ABSTRACT
Interviewer deviations from question wording can change question meaning, thus undermining validity. For this reason, interviewers are instructed to read questions exactly as worded in standardized interviews. This chapter takes advantage of a unique data set from Wave 3 of the Understanding Society Innovation Panel that includes question timing paradata and behavior codes identifying misread questions to test how well question administration time thresholds (QATT) methods detect actual interviewer question-reading deviations. Three methods of developing QATTs are tested: Words per second (WPS) point estimates (minimum QATT only), WPS ranges (minimum and maximum QATTs), and standard deviations of mean question-reading times (minimum and maximum QATTs). The chapter finds interviewers engaged in question-reading deviations, either minor or major, at a rate of 48 percent of questions read. Deviations were mostly minor, but almost 13 percent of the question readings were classified through behavior coding as major deviations.
