At the request of the Demographic Directorate, staff from the Center for Survey Measurement cognitively pretested the Email and Internet Mode Supplement of the 2013 Current Population Survey.

Cognitive interviews were conducted with general population respondents in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to test questions designed to collect email addresses and determine respondent preference for different modes of contact and survey administration. Results of the interviews showed that: 1) respondents were able to answer both the one-question and two-question versions of the request for email addresses. The overwhelming majority of respondents to both versions provided email addresses; 2) respondents used two different heuristics when answering the question about whether they shared their email addresses: multiple people sending and receiving messages, and an account for one person that another person, perhaps a spouse, had the password and potential access to; and 3) respondents gave a variety of responses to the question about mode preferences for answering the survey, including mode combinations. Some of the combinations reflected sequential use of the modes while others reflected an either/or choice of the modes they selected.