self report techniques

• interview is when pp give info in response to direct questioning can be conducted over phone or video call
• advantages of interviews are that they allow the interviewer to ask follow up questions, it allows for more detailed responses than questionnaires as participants have time to think about their answers, it provides an opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings, it allows for non verbal cues which may indicate how truthful participant is being.
• Disadvantages of interviews


  • Social desirability bias - people want to present themselves in a positive light so will lie
  • Demand characteristics - participants know what the researcher wants them to say so change their behaviour accordingly
  • Halo effect - one characteristic influences others e.g if someone is attractive we assume other things like intelligence, honesty etc are also true
  • Interviewers may influence participants by asking leading questions
  • Some participants may not feel comfortable talking about certain topics with strangers
  • No way to check whether information given is accurate
• questionairre pp give info in response to a set of questions that are sent to them. either done online or through a form given to them
• self report measures are subjective because they rely on individuals reporting their thoughts feelings and behaviours rather than objective measurements from external sources
• open questions are phrased in a way that allows the pp to answer in any way they choose producing qualitative data. good as it can lead to more valid responses. however it can make data analysis between pps difficult ask you can not spot patterns between responses.
• closed questions are phrased in a way that limits participants responses to only a few fixed options. produces quantitative data allowing easy data analysis between large number of pp responses. however since answers are limited this also means that answers are not as detailed and therefore less useful
• an successfully designed interviews or questionnaire would avoid complex terminology, reword questions if pp does not understand. and not use leading questions. as well as that piloting questions makes sure you do not give away the aims of the study. filler questions can be used to put pp at ease
• structured interviews is when interviewers reads out lists of prepared questions as they are written, good thing about this is that the interviewer does not have to be trained to conduct interview and the responses are easier to compare due to the same questions being used. However, the pp responses cannot be followed up with additional questions that can provide more detail.
• unstructured interviews have no setlist of questions and have an open conversation about a topic. the participant would feel more comfort to answer and interesting response can be achieved with additional questions. however you will need an highly trained interviewer to think up questions in the moment. every interview would be different making comparisons difficult.