SELF-REPORT TECHNIQUES

• What are self-report techniques?

  Describes methods of gathering data where participants provide information about themselves without interference from the researcher.
• What are structured interviews?

  Where the interviewer has a set list of questions to lead the conversation, a framework which will be rigidly stuck to.
• What are unstructured interviews?

  Where the interviewer may have a list of topics or questions, but has extra flexibility to lead the conversation further, should participant responses lead to a more detailed discussion.
• What are 2 strengths of self-report techniques?

  •  Participants can be asked about their feelings and thoughts, which can be more useful than simply observing behaviour alone.
  • Scenarios can be asked about hypothetically without having to physically set them up and observe participants’ behaviour.
• What are 2 weaknesses of self-report techniques?

  • Gathering information about thoughts or feelings is only useful if participants are willing to disclose them to the researcher.
  • Participants may try to give the ‘correct’ responses they think researchers are looking for (or deliberately do the opposite), or try to come across in most socially acceptable way - social desirability bias, which can lead to giving untruthful responses.
• What are interviews?

  Self-report techniques that involve an experimenter asking participants

  questions and record their responses.
• What are questionnaires?

  A written self-report technique where participants are given a pre-set

  number of questions to respond to. They can be administered in person, online, or to a group of participants simultaneously.
• What are open questions?

  Where there is no restriction on how participants make their response.
• What are closed questions?

  Where there is a pre-determined set of answers to choose from.
• What are 2 strengths of using questionnaires?

  • Questionnaires are a relatively cheap and quick way to gather a large amount of data.
  • Since questionnaires can be completed privately (and often anonymously), responses may be more likely to be honest.
• What are 2 weaknesses of using questionnaires?

  •  Social desirability issues may arise, where participants give incorrect responses to try to put themselves in a socially acceptable light.
  • Distributing questionnaires via post or the internet means that any data collected relies on responses to be returned; response rates may be poor, and it may be that only a certain type of person returns questionnaires, so generalising the results to a large population can be unconvincing.
• What are 2 weaknesses of using questionnaires?

  • Questionnaires may be flawed if some questions are leading.
  • If any questions are misunderstood, participants completing questionnaires privately cannot get clarification on the meaning from an experimenter, so may complete them incorrectly.