Self-reporting techniques

• Questionnaires - standardised set of questions is given to each ppt, they give their written answers.
• Questionnaires

  • gives you lots of data quickly
  • provides with an insight into people's views, opinions, past and specific experiences

  BUT ONLY IS PPT ANSWERS ACCURATELY (tend to lie due to social desirability)
• Social desirability - tendency for people to present themselves in a generally favourable way. Particularly within the field of self-report assessment of personality and attitudes.
• Qualitative data: rich in detail and description, textual or narrative form

  • allows in-depth analysis
  • difficult to analyse or compare
• Quantitative data: numerical data, measurements of quantity or amount

  • easier to analyse, to compare
  • not detailed, potentially superficial
• Open questions: allow ppt to answer however they want

  Generate qualitative data
• Closed questions: restrict respondent to a predetermined set of responses

  Generate quantitative data
• Likert scale - scale from 1 to 10, usually used in closed questions
• Questionnaires +

  • large amount of info from them can be administered quickly, it is cost-efficient and less time consuming
  • easy to reach a wide range of ppt from target population
  • easily made anonymous, done in private, more honest and valid responses
• Questionnaire -

  • response rates are low, hard to accurately generalise
  • response bias -only certain types of people will return the questionnaire
  • lack of monitoring responses means respondents may be less honest, so the data is not valid
  • ppt may misunderstand the questions -> invalid data
  • acquiescence bias - is the tendency for survey respondents to agree with research statements, without the action being a true reflection of their own position or the question itself
• Reliability - doing the same test in the same way and getting the same (similar) results
• Self-reporting techniques:

  • questionnaire
  • interview
• Structured interview - usually produces quantitative data, where questions are decided in advance, researcher determines the focus
• Unstructured interview - questions not decided in advance, it allows focus to be decided during the session
• Semi-structured - most successful, with only some questions decided in advance, interviewer can elaborate on pp's answers.
• AO3 Interviews:

  • Sensitive Topics - certain aspects of behaviour may be personal (or sensitive), therefore best ‘tackled’ by this approach. Respondents may be more open face to face (or not!)​

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  • Flexibility - The interviewer can investigate complex issues, which may be difficult to study via experiments. The interviewer can pursue an interesting line of questioning and get more qualitative data​
• AO3 Interviews:

  • Responses - depending on the type of interview, the responses of the interviewee may be restricted. Some respondents may be inhibited or dislike the interviewer/situation​

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  • Misinterpretation & Bias - to be completely objective, the interviewer needs to be detached from the interviewee - difficult to achieve. Data collected can be difficult to analyze (unstructured and qualitative)​
• How to check validity?

  • Assess whether your questionnaire has face validity (does it look like it is measuring what it is supposed to measure?)​
  • Does it have content validity (are all the questions relevant and helping to measure the target variables)​
  • Does it have concurrent validity? (Do you think your findings would agree with another  method (e.g an observation)?) ​
• Correlation - is a statistical study that shows whether and how strongly a pair of variables are related. 

  The numbers being analysed relate to behaviours (or variables that could affect them)
• Each of the two sets of numbers represents a co-variable. Once data has been collected for each of the co-variables, it can be plotted in a scattergram and/ or statistically analysed to produce a correlation coefficient.​
• Positive correlation - both variables increase
• Negative correlation - one variable increases, the other decreases
• Zero correlation - chaotic
• Non-linear correlation - curvilinear
• Scattergrams and coefficients indicate the strength of a relationship between two variables, which highlights the extent to which two variables correspond.​

  • always coefficient of between 1 and -1 (closer to 1 - more positive)
• Significance of coefficient:

  • Significance is the extent to which something is particularly unusual. It is not significant if it happened due to chance.​
  • The more pairs of data we have the smaller the coefficient can be to make it significant.
• Strengths of correlation:

  • Correlations are very useful as a preliminary research technique (identifying link for further research)
  • ​Can be used to research topics that are sensitive/ otherwise would be unethical.​
  • Can use secondary data (such as stats​)
  • Quick and economical to produce​

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• Limitations of correlation:

  • Correlations only identify a link, can't establish cause and effect
  • might have a third variable present which is influencing one of the co-variables. E.g. stress might lead to smoking/ alcohol intake which leads to illness, so there is an indirect relationship between stress and illness.​
  • Media reports them as fact when actually it may not be real.​ e.g. Crime rates in children are higher when you come from single parent family
• Primary data: data collected for the research purpose

  Collected from experiments, self-report, observations
• Primary data

  + gets data you need to answer the research question

  -time consuming
• Secondary data: collected by someone else, could be journal data, government stats, books.
• Secondary data

  + inexpensive and easy to access

  + can be used to avoid collection of some primary data

  -variation in the quality of the data

  -data may not match the aim research needs