Technical Evaluation of Questionnaires' Changing of the Guard

Michal Freedman and B. J. Stone.

Betty Jane (B. J.) Stone, Ph.D., a staff scientist in the Biostatistics Branch, stepped down in September as chair of DCEG's Technical Evaluation of Questionnaires (TEQ) Committee. Dr. Stone, who will retire in December after 33 years at NCI, has led TEQ for more than a decade. During her time at NCI, she has assembled and overseen a searchable collection of questionnaire modules on the DCEG intranet. This resource has proven valuable to extramural and intramural investigators. She has also served as an administrator for the NCI Atlas of Cancer Mortality. An analytic thinker with great editing skills, she has coauthored many papers on the causes of cancer among high-risk populations and edited numerous articles written by other DCEG researchers. Dr. Stone will be missed for her many substantial contributions to the Division's mission of high-quality research and training.

D. Michal Freedman, Ph.D., M.P.H., a staff scientist in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch since 1999, has been appointed as the new chair of TEQ. Dr. Freedman came to NCI in 1994 through the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program. Previously, she received a J.D. degree from Yale and practiced law for the government, a private firm, and a public interest organization. She subsequently received an M.P.H. degree in 1995 and earned her doctorate in epidemiology in 1998 from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Freedman's exceptional background will serve her well as she presides over a committee that not only evaluates the scientific content of questionnaires, but also examines the tone and precision of their wording.

The TEQ provides formal review of questionnaires to be used in DCEG studies. Approval by TEQ is strongly recommended before a questionnaire is submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for clinical exemption or clearance and before use in the field. The TEQ solicits questionnaires for review once a month. Its aim is to aid investigators in developing effective questionnaires by evaluating:

Where language might be altered to make it clearer to the average subject;
Whether questions deal with sensitive areas, and if so, whether the subject matter is important enough to the study to risk offense;
Whether questions or areas that are central to the subject matter have been omitted or underemphasized;
Whether there are too many questions for a significant portion of subjects to answer (e.g., if the case subjects are seriously ill); and
Whether there are enough questions on individual topics to permit meaningful analysis.