Self-report techniques

• Self report techniques

  Any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions, behaviours or experiences related to a given topic.
• Questionaire

  A set of written questions used to assess a persons thoughts or experiences.
• 2 types of questions in questionnaires

  • Open
  • Closed
• Open question

  Does not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way that they wish.

  Tends to produce qualitative data, which contains a wide range of different answer, but can be hard to analyse.
• Closed question

  Fixed number of responses, usually produces quantitative data which is usually easy to analyse but may lack depth.
• Interviews

  A live encounter where one person asks a set of questions to assess an interviewees thoughts or experiences. The questions may be pre-set or develop as the interview goes along.
• Structured interview

  Made up of pre-determined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order.
• Unstructured interview

  No set questions, general aim that a certain topic will be discussed and interaction tends to be free-flowing.

  Interviewee is encouraged to expand and elaborate on their answers.
• Semi-structured interview

  E.g job interview

  • List of questions worked out in advance but interviewers are also free to ask follow up questions to previous answer.
• Strengths of questionaires

  • Cost effective. They can gather large amounts of data quickly because they can be distributed to a large number of people.
  • Data can be collected without researcher there, reduces effort involved.
  • Data is usually quantitative so easy to analyse.
• Limitations of questionnaires

  • Responses given may not be truthful as respondents may be keen to present themselves in a positive light. So increase in demand characteristics and social desirability bias.
  • Response bias, respondents reply in a similar way e.g always ticking yes because respondents complete to quickly and fail to read scale. (acquiescence bias)
• What is acquiescence bias?

  • Tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire
• Evaluation of structured interview

  • Straightforward to replicate due to standardised format.
  • Limit on quantity and richness of data collected.
• Evaluation of unstructured interview

  • Interviewer can follow up on interviewee so gain greater insight into world view of interviewee.
  • Increased risk of interviewer bias
  • Analysis of data is harder, as researcher may have the sift through irrelevant information to draw a conclusion.
  • Interviewees may lie for social desirability. However a skilled and experienced interviewer should be able to establish rapport with the participant so that even when sensitive and person topics are discussed any responses given are truthful and meaningful.