Directed self-placement questionnaire design: Practices, problems, possibilities

•This study maps theoretical and historical terrain of current DSP questionnaires.•We discuss valid, theoretically sound, locally-informed questions.•We offer a case study of a DSP instrument grounded in rhetorical genre theory.•The study advocates DSP design vis-a-vis values and consequences of local contexts. Over the last fifteen years, directed self-placement (DSP) has become a widespread approach to writing placement in US postsecondary settings. However, to date, the theoretical underpinnings of DSP instruments have received little scholarly attention. Drawing on survey design principles, this study analyzes a corpus of thirty DSP questionnaires to identify the range of theoretical concepts underlying DSP questions, as well as the dimensions used to measure those concepts. Arguing that the validity of DSP in local contexts depends to a great extent on the initial theoretical and empirical basis of the instruments used to structure DSP processes, the researchers discuss the problems as well as the possibilities of the concepts and dimensions currently used in DSP questionnaires. Finally, they offer the example of one of their own universities' DSP questionnaires, which is grounded in rhetorical genre theory, as a case study for how attending to questionnaire concepts and dimensions can contribute to the thoughtful design of locally situated DSP instruments.