Self report techniques

• Questionnaires:

  • Researcher can use lots of different styles of questions but they are broadly catagorised into the following:

  1. Closed questions – offer a fixed number of responses.
  2. Open questions – does not have a fixed range of answers. Respondents are free to answer in any way they wish
• Questionnaires:

  • Set of written questions designed to collect information about a particular topic
  • Psychologists will use questionnaires to discover what people think or feel
  • Could be used as part of a study to assess the DV
  • Could be used as the research method
• Some people might hesitate to give their genuine response to questions because they might ‘look bad’ in doing so. This is called social desirability bias and is a form of demand characteristic.
• Acquiescence bias (or ‘yea saying’) is the tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content of a question.
• Questionnaires Strengths:

  • Quick and cheap
  • Large Samples
  • Qualitative and quantitative data
  • Replication
• Questionnaires Weaknesses:

  • Misunderstanding (leading questions/wording)
  • Biased samples
  • Social desirability (participants may present in a positive light)
• Interviews

  • A research method or technique that (usually) involves face-to-face, real time interaction with another individual and results in the collection of data. (Sometimes data may be collected over the phone, internet etc)
• There are 3 broad types of interviews:

  • Structured:

  Formal interview, set of fixed questions, asked in same order

  • Unstructured:

  Informal, less controlled, more of a discussion, but the topic is predetermined.

  The interviewer explores certain topic areas of interest.

  • Semi-Structured:

  Mixture of both, questions likely to have been worked out in advance but may ask ‘follow up’ questions based on previous answers.
• Interview Strengths:

  • Complex/sensitive issues discussed better (natural flow)
  • Misunderstanding can be clarified
  • Flexibility in data analysis (qual/quant)
  • Replication (structured interviews not unstructured)
• Interview Weaknesses:

  • Interview training for unstructured (costs money and time)
  • Ethical issues (don't know the aim of the study, p’s reveals more than they wish to)
  • Demand characteristics and social desirability
  • Important: interviewer bias. The effect of an interviewer’s expectations, communicated unconsciously on a p’s behaviour
  • Ps sometimes unable to put feelings into words
• Questionnaires & Interviews Strengths:

  • Easily repeated therefore generating more data, valid, reliable
  • Can be used to generate qualitative and quantitative data
• Questionnaires & Interviews Weaknesses:

  • Participants may be affected by biases such as social desirability and may be influenced by leading questions
  • Only some people are willing to take part and may not be representative......
  • Generalisability......