Self reports

• Questionnaires = involve asking participants a lift of predetermined questions which they answer themselves, the questions can be either open ended or closed
• Structured Interviews = involve a researcher asking a list of pre-determined questions and recording the participants responses. Structured interviews can take place either face to face or over the telephone 
• Semi-structured interviews = involve some predetermined questions but have the flexibility to ask additional questions depending upon the response, a researcher might find a particular interesting and wish to explore the answer further by asking additional questions 
• Unstructured interviews = involve having not prepared any questions before the interview takes place 
• Quantitative = research involves measuring data using numbers, it is easy to analyse and compare and can create statistics however may lack details and we they cannot be used to find out why people behave the way they do 
• Qualitative = research involves measuring data using descriptive language, it provides a more complex  account of what people think or feel, it allows more detailed and accurate responses and we can find out the reasons behind why people behave the way they do however it can be complex and therefore difficult to analyse it is also subjective as it deals with opinions
• STRENGTHS OF A QUESTIONNAIRE 

  • can be used in a large range of research situations
  •  Simple, once created no additional training for administrators
  • Easy to replace 
  • Large amounts of data can be collected
  • They are cheap to carry out 
  •  They are quick to carry out
  • Closed questions can be analysed easily
  • Can include quantitative and qualitative data 
• WEAKNESSES OF A QUESTIONNAIRE 

  • Social desirability effect, participants may not be truthful
  • Experimenter bias
  • Ambiguous questions, participants may misinterpret the meaning of some of the questions 
  • Lack of flexibility in fixed answer choices, forcing respondents to answer
  • Leading questions may influence responses 
• closed questions = questions where the researcher determines the range of possible answers (usually tick box questions or circle appropriate answers) They are best to use when factual information is required
• Open-ended questions = questions where the researcher does not restrict the range of answers available to give, these questions produce a greater depth of information and are often harder to analyse as the range of answers is so wide
• External reliability = getting the same result from your questionnaire when it is repeated, it can be tested with the test re-test method 
• Internal reliability = questions are clear and interpreted the same way by all respondents, this means that similar people will answer the questions in a similar way, this can be tested by using the split half method 
• STRENGTHS OF AN STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

  • Easy to ask the questions
  • Easy to analyse the data
  • Easy to find patters and trends on the answers
• WEAKNESSES OF AN STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

  Interviewer bias may occur

   
• STRENGTHS OF AN UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW

  • No irrelevant questions are asked

  Allows people to elaborate
• WEAKNESSES OF AN UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW

  • Can’t compare data
  • Interviewer bias
  • Higher level of interviewer required meaning more expensive training and more time consuming
• unstructured observation = Involves defining the categories of behaviours to be observed before the observation starts.