self-report techniques

• what is a self-report technique? 


  this is any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions, behaviour and/or experiences related to any given topic
• what is negative about a questionnaire?


  social desirability reduces internal validity
• what is negative about a questionnaire?


  response bias, participants answer all the questions in the same way
• what is positive about a questionnaire?


  can also be quick to distribute
• what is positive about a questionnaire?


  cost effective and requires minimal effort from the researcher
• what is an open question?


  they do not have fixed range of answers. this produces qualitative data
• what is positive about an open question?


  produces lots of detail about how the participants feel
• what is negative about an open question? 


  hard to analyse as they produce qualitative data
• what is a closed question? 


  this has a fixed number of responses. produces quantitative data
• what is positive about a closed question? 


  this is easy to analyse as they usually produce quantitative data
• what is negative about closed questions? 


  this often lacks detail and meaning as participants cannot elaborate on their results.
• what are the 3 types of closed questions?


  Likert scale

  fixed option scale

  rating scale
• what is a likert scale?


  1-5/10

  agree or disagree

  numerical data
• what is a fixed option scale? 


  list of options

  tick all that apply
• what is a rating scale?


  1-5/10

  how they feel about a topic
• what are double-barrelled questions? 


  this is where questions contain 2 questions in 1 and respondent might only agree with one and not the other
• what should researchers not do when writing questions?


  they should not use terms familliar to specialists who only use those words, avoid using emotive language
• what should researchers not do when writing questions?


  researchers attitude towards a particular topic is clear from the way in which the question is phrased
• what are interviews? 


  they are face to face interactions, can be conducted over the phone
• what are structured interviews?


  these are a set of questions which the researcher asks the person being interviewed, this can't be changed, same order and questions for each participant
• what is positive about structured interviews? 


  the questions are standardised and asked in the same sequence every time to all participants
• what is positive about structured interviews? 


  the interview is easily repeated to test for reliability
• what is negative about structured interviews? 


  the researcher cannot ask follow up questions, which means the participants response may lack detail
• what are unstructured interviews? 


  these are flexible conversations, has a certain topic to focus on, and has different questions for each participant
• what is positive about an unstructured interview?

  the researcher can get a deeper insight to the participants thoughts and can ask follow up questions
• what is negative about an unstructured interview? 


  they are more time-consuming and costly, as this type of interview requires a trained psychologist to administer them