The study is predominately descriptive. The study instrument - a questionnaire - contains closed and multiple-choice questions. The instrument was pretested, and produced in three languages (English, French and Spanish) (Annex 3). It covered the general project characteristics (type of implementing organization, duration, location); project planning, development and rationale; target groups and expected behaviour changes; materials developed and on what basis; pretesting; channels of communication; implementers; evaluation of reach and impact; facilitating and constraining factors; problems experienced and lessons learned; financing sources; and follow-up.

In planning research, there is a tension between the need to gather sufficient and accurate data, and the risk of developing an overwhelmingly long questionnaire. To address this tension, the study questionnaire was designed with a combination of closed and open-ended questions. Closed questions, with limited possible answers, were used wherever feasible to help generate precise information. For ease of response, the number of open questions was kept to a minimum. Nevertheless, open questions allow the respondent a chance to describe issues, problems, successes, and lessons learned in their own words, and are essential to the quality of the data collected. They were therefore included despite predictable problems of subjectivity and comparability.