Self-report techniques

• What is a questionnaire?

  • a questionnaire is a set of written questions. It is designed to collect information about a topic or topics.
  • Questionnaires can be an objective and scientific way of conducting research, but this involves more than thinking up some questions. Design is important.
  • Questionnaires are always predetermined, i.e. structured
• Writing good questions:

  • Clarity- no ambiguity. Avoid the use of double negatives e.g. 'are you against banning capital punishment". Avoid the use of double-barreled questions e.g. "Do you suffer from headaches and sickness"
  • Bias- avoid leaning questions
  • Analysis- questions need to be written so that answers can be analysed. Consider the use of open and closed questions
• Writing good questionnaires:

  • Filler questions- irrelevant questions to distract the respondents from the main purpose of the survey. This may reduce demand characteristics.
  • Sequence of questions- best to start with the easy ones, saving questions that are more tricky for when the respondent has relaxed.
  • Sampling technique- think about how best to sample your participants
  • Pilot study- questions can be tested on a small group of people. This means the questions can be refined in response to any difficulties encountered.
• What is an interview?

  A research method that involves face-to-face 'real time' interaction with another individual and results in the collection of data.
• What is a structured interview?

  Has predetermined questions, in order words it is essentially a questionnaire that is delivered face-to-face with no deviation from the original questions. It is conducted in real time- the interviewer asks questions, and the interviewee replies.
• What is an unstructured interview?

  Has less structure! New questions are developed throughout the course of the interview. The interview may begin with general aims and possibly a few pre-determined questions, but subsequent questions develop on the basis of the answers that are given.

  This is sometimes called the a clinical interview because it is a bit like an interview that you might have with a doctor.
• Questioning skills:

  • Avoid probing too much and repetition of questions
  • Ask focused questions
• The effect of the interviewer:

  >Interviewers need to be aware of their behaviour.

  >Nonverbal communication- various behaviours can communicate disapproval or disinterest e.g. frowning or can be encouraging the interviewer to speak e.g. nodding
• What is a strength of self-report techniques?

  • Allow access to what people think and feel, to their experiences and attitudes
• What is a weakness of self-report techniques?

  • People may not supply truthful answers. They may not deliberately lie, but may simply answer in a socially desirable way (social desirability bias)
  • People may not know how they feel, so make their answer up and thus their answers lack validity
• What are some strengths of questionnaires?

  • Can be distributed to large numbers of people relatively quickly and cheaply. This enables a researcher to collect from a large sample of people
  • Respondents may be more willing to give personal information in a questionnaire than in an interview, where they may feel more self-conscious and cautious.
• What are some weaknesses of questionnaires?

  • Can only be filled in by people who can read and write and have time to fill them in- the sample is biased
• What are some strengths of Structured interviews?

  • It can easily be repeated because the questions are standardised. This means that answers from different people can be compared
  • Easier to analyse than unstructured interviews because the answers are more predictable
• What are some weaknesses of structured interviews?

  • Comparability may be a problem if the same interviewer behaves differently on different occasions or different interviewers behave differently (low reliability)
  • An interviewee's expectation may influence the answers the interviewee gives (a form of investigator effect known as interviewer bias)
• What are some strengths of unstructured interviews?

  • More detailed information can be obtained. This is because the interviewer tailors further questions to the specific responses.
• What are some weaknesses of unstructured interviews?

  • Requires the interviewer to have more skill than a structured interview because the interviewer has to develop questions on the spot. The requirement for well-trained interviewers makes unstructured interviews more expensive to produce compared with structured interviews
  • Such in-depth questions may be more likely to lack objectivity than predetermined ones because of their instantaneous nature, with no time for the interviewer to reflect on what to say
• What are some strengths of open questions?

  • Respondents can expand on their answers which increases the amount of data collected
  • Can provide unexpected answers allowing researchers to gain further insights into people's feelings and attitudes
• What are some weaknesses of open questions?

  • Most respondents avoid giving complex answers so they may not gather more detailed information
  • Open questions produce qualitative data which is more difficult to summarise because there is a range of responses. It is harder to detect patterns and draw conclusions.
• What are some strengths of closed questions?

  • Have a limited range of responses and produce quantitative data which means that answers are easier to analyse using graphs and measures such as the mean
• What are some weaknesses of closed questions?

  • Respondents may be forced to select answers that don't represent their real thoughts or behaviour. This means that the data collected might lack validity
  • Participants may select 'don't know' or may have a preference to answer 'yes' (an acquiescence bias) and therefore data collected are not informative.