Questionnaires

• What do self report techniques refer to?


  Methods where a person is asked to give their opinions, feelings, experiences and behaviours on a certain topic
• Define questionnaires as a form of self report technique?


  They assess a person's thoughts/experiences through a number of different written questions
• what are open questions?


  When the questions are phrased in a way that the participant is free to answer however they like, no restrictions.
• What type of data do open questions collect?

  qualitative
• Define closed questions?


  Qyestions which restrict you to a fixed number of repsonses
• What type of data is collected by closed questions?


  Quantitative
• Give examples of closed questions?

  • Likert scale
  • Ratin scales
  • Fixed choice scales
• Define likert scale?


  where the respondent indicates agreement with a statement which ranges from agree to strongly agree
• what are rating scales?


  Respondents identify a value that represents their strength of feeling about a particular topic
• What are fixed choice scales?


  includes a list of possible options and respondents are required to indicate those that apply to them
• What are the strengths of open questions?


  • rich in depth and detail
  • Useful for sensitive topics as participants can elaborate on their answers
• What is a limitation of open questions?


  • Difficult to convert to statisitcal data hence it is more difficult to analyse
• what is a strength of closed questions?


  • Easy to analyse data and compare with data from elsewhere
• what are the limitations to closed questions?


  • Lack depth and detail
  • Can be limiting which can be frustrating for participants
• what are the limitations of qiestionnaires?

  • Difficult to know whether the target population was intended for answers e.g If it is online
  • Take a long time to design
  • Difficult to assess the validity as biases such as when social desirability bias is presented
  • Participant bias- presented from factors such as time
  • Response bias - presented from factors such as acquiscence bais where participants agree with all the questions, not putting in any effort into considering an answer
• What are the strengths of questionnaires?


  • Cost effective
  • Gathers large amounts of data quickly
  • Researcher does not need to be present
  • Easy to analyse
  • Responses are usually anonymous so participants may be more open
• Why is there a high risk of demand characteristics in questionnaires?

  Participants may work out what the researcher wants them to repsond in the questionnaire, leading to social desirability bais and reducing of internal validity as it is not a representation of the participants behaviour
• How are questionnaires constructed?


  Clarity- respondent knows what is needed from them

  Avoids overuse of jargon, leading questions and double barrelled questions

  Sequencing questions- Easy ones first then followed by harder ones

  Filler questions- Questions that are unrelated to the investigation and are put in to reduce demand charatceristics as it distracts the ppt from guessing the real aim of the study

  Pilot study- ensures the questionnaire is suitable