Self-report

• Quantitative data - Numerical data often collected in experiments
• Qualitative data - non-numerical data often collected in self-report methods
• Quantitative data A03: STRENGTH

  I: easy to analyse + compare

  E: Use of numbers provides neat conclusions that can be statistically analysed

  C: high internal validity as there is less subjective interpretation + higher chance they are measuring what they intend to measure
• Quantitative data A03: WEAKNESS

  I: lacks rich detail

  E: the data is not as informative as qualitative data

  C: may not give you the complete picture of what you're trying to measure
• Qualitative data A03: STRENGTH

  I: More detailed and in-depth data

  E: allows the researcher to ask the participant 'why' which makes the data more informative than using statistics

  C: greater understanding of human thoughts and behaviour
• Qualitative data A03: WEAKNESS

  I: difficult to analyse + compare

  E: because it is non-numerical it is difficult to make comparisons between the words as using numbers to compare is much more objective

  C: very subjective analysis and simple conclusions cannot be made easily which makes it harder to establish cause and effect
• Questionnaires: self report technique

  To investigate their views, opinions and attitudes

  Large and representative sample
• Open questions:

  Allow participants to write their own response which produces qualitative data
• Closed questions:

  Give participants a limited number of fixed responses which produces quantitative data
• Questionnaires A03: STRENGTH

  I: time + money efficient

  E: Can be mass-produced and analysed easily particularly when its quantitative data

  C: enables researcher to distribute them quickly to many participants meaning conclusions are more representative
• Questionnaires A03: WEAKNESS

  I: lack rich detail

  E: often made up of closed, fixed-response questions, which doesn't tell us why people think or feel a certain way

  C: Means we do not get a full accurate picture of the respondents true feelings - lowers the validity - cannot establish a cause and effect
• Questionnaires A03: WEAKNESS

  I: social desirability bias

  E: People may change their answers to be more desirable

  C: low internal validity as its not measuring what it intends to measure therefore cannot establish a cause and effect relationship
• Interviews:

  • Natural and flexible approach
  • Structured, unstructured or semi-structured
  • Closed/open questions
• Structured interview:

  • Prewritten
  • sometimes add follow-on questions and can be closed or open questions
• Unstructured interview:

  • few predetermined questions
  • more like a conversation
  • tend to be open questions
• Interviews A03: STRENGTH

  I: detailed information

  E: Use combination of both closed and open questions - allows the participants to be honest and express themselves + allow the researcher to analyse the responses using graphs

  C: accurately measuring the participants response in much greater detail - higher internal validity
• Interviews A03: WEAKNESS

  I: time consuming to conduct

  E: interviews will require more transcribing which can take many hours in comparison to collecting quantitative data

  C: means the sample size is going to be small so the sample is less generalisable
• Interviews A03: WEAKNESS

  I: time consuming to analyse

  E: more difficult to statistically analyse the data from unstructured interviews as it tends to be qualitative data which requires subjective interpretation from the researcher

  C: less trustworthy as one person interpretated the data which means errors could be made leading to biases and opinions which = low validity