self-report design

• writing good questions: when writing questions there are 3 guiding principles: clarity, bias and analysis
• clarity: questions need to be written so that the reader (respondent) understands what is being asked, there should be no ambiguity something that is ambiguous has at least 2 possible meanings
• clarity: e.g. 'did you see that girl w/ the telescope?' could mean 'did you see the girl when you were using the telescope?' or it could mean 'did you see the girl who was using a telescope?'
• clarity: the use of double negatives reduced clarity, a double negative is when there are 2 negative words in 1 sentence e.g. 'are you against banning capital punishment', a further issue is double-barreled questions e.g. 'do you suffer from sickness and headaches'
• bias: any bias in a question might lead the respondent to be more likely to give a particular answer (as in a leading question) the greatest problem is probably social desirability bias
• bias: respondents prefer to give answers that make them look more attractive, nicer, more generous etc. rather than being totally truthful
• analysis: questions need to be written so that the answers are easy to analyse, if you ask 'what do you like most about your job?' or 'what makes you feel stressed at work?' you may get 50 different answers from 50 people, these are called open questions
• analysis: alternatively researchers can ask closed questions where the range of possible answers is fixed, such as listing 5 possible answers for respondents to choose from or asking a question w/ a yes/no/maybe answer
• analysis: such closed questions are easier to analyse but respondents may be forced to select answers that don't represent their real thoughts or behaviour
• writing good questionnaires: a good questionnaire should contain good questions but there are other things to consider such as = filler questions, sequence for the questions, sampling technique and pilot study
• filler questions: it may help to include some irrelevant questions to distract the respondent from the main purpose of the survey this may reduce demand characteristics
• sequence for the questions: it is best to start w/ the easy ones, saving questions that might make someone feel anxious or defensive until the respondent has relaxed
• sampling technique: i.e. how to select respondents, questionnaire studied often use stratified sampling
• pilot study: the questions can be tested on a small group of people, this means the questions can later be refined in response to any difficulties encountered
• design of interviews: many of the considerations apply to interviews as well e.g. seeking clarity in the questions asked and starting an interview w/ some general, easy questions to put the interviewer at ease
• recording the interview: an interviewer may take notes throughout the interview to document answers but this is likely to interfere w/ their learning skills
• recording the interview: it may also make the respondent feel a sense of evaluation because the interviewer may not write everything down and then the respondent feels that what they said was no valuable, alternatively interviews may be audio recorded or video recorded
• the effect of the interviewer: one of the strengths of conducting interviews rather than using a questionnaire is that the presence of an interviewer who is interested in the respondent's answers may increase the amount of information provided even in an unstructured interview
• the effect of the interviewer: this means that interviewers need to be aware of behaviours that demonstrate their 'interest' this include 2 things = non-verbal communication and listening skills
• non-verbal communication: various behaviours such as sitting w/ arms crossed and frowning communicate disapproval and disinterest whereas head nodding and leaning forward may encourage the respondent to speak
• listening skills: an interviewer needs to know when and how to speak e.g. they should not interrupt too often when they do speak they should have a range of encouraging comments such as 'how interesting' to show they are listening
• questioning skills in an unstructured interview: in an unstructured interview there are special skills to be learned about what kind of follow up questions should be asked
• questioning skills in an unstructured interview: it is important to be aware of the questions already asked and avoid repeating them, it is also useful to avoid probing too much e.g. after asking someone what an experience was like don't then say 'what was it really like?' it is also not helpful to ask 'why?' too often
• questioning skills in an unstructured interview: it is better to ask more focused questions - both for the interviewee and also later for the analysis of the answers
• open questions S: respondents can expand on their answers, which increases the amount and detail of information collected
• open questions S: open questions can provide unexpected answers thus allowing researchers to gain new insights into people's feelings and attitudes
• open questions L: most respondents may simply avoid giving lengthy complex answers therefore in practice, open questions may not actually provide detailed extra information
• open questions L: open questions produce qualitative data which are more difficult to summarise because there is likely to be a wide range of responses, this makes it harder to detect clear patterns and draw conclusions
• the benefits of open questions in terms of detailed information gathered are therefore offset by difficulties detecting clear patterns
• closed questions S: closed questions have a limited range of answers and produce quantitative data which means the answers are easier to analyse using graphs and measures such as the mean
• closed questions L: respondents may be forced to select answers that don't represent their real thoughts or behaviour, this means that data collected lacks validity
• closed questions L: participants may select 'don't know' or have a preference to answer yes (an acquiescence bias) and therefore the data collected are not informative
• the limitations of closed questions mean they are best used when straightforward, factual information is needed
• a psychological test is a task or set of tasks that measures some aspect of human behaviour e.g. IQ tests measure intelligence, amplitude scales measures e.g. artistic or numerical ability psychological tests and attitude scales are not self-report techniques but they do commonly involve filling in a questionnaire
• ceiling + floor effects: test scores may not be accurate because of a ceiling effect, if all the questions on a test are easy then every will do well i.e. hitting the ceiling, the reverse may sometimes be true where all the questions are too hard and everyone does poorly i.e. hits the floor (floor effect)