Self Report Techniques

08/11

What are self-report techniques? (2)

Involve asking people about their own experiences or beliefs

Questionnaires and interviews

Self-report techniques: Strengths

Provides insights into how people think and feel

Self-report techniques: Limitations (3)

People may answer in a socially desirable way (social desirability bias)

May not know what they think or feel so might make the answer up

Sample may not be representative leading to sample bias and a lack of generalisability

Questionnaires

Set of written questions

Questionnaires: Strengths (2)

Once designed and tested they can be easily and cheaply distributed to large numbers (lots of data collected)

Respondents may be more willing to give personal information in a questionnaire than an interview

Questionnaire: Weakness

Only filled in by people who can read and write - bias sample, reduces generalisability

Interviews

A real time interaction with another individual, resulting in the collection of data

Structured Interview (2)

Predetermined questions used

No deviation from the list of questions

Unstructured interview

Interviewer free to make changes in the questions

Closed questions

Have a predetermined range of answers from which respondents select one

Open questions

Invites respondents to provide their own answers

Open Questions: Advantages (2)

Respondents can extend on answers

Can generate unexpected answers, allowing researchers to gain new insights into people’s feelings and attitudes

Open questions: Disadvantages (2)

Respondents may avoid giving lengthy answers

Produces qualitative data (non numerical data), harder to analyse and draw conclusion

Closed Questions: Advantages

Produce quantitative data, which is easy to analyse

Closed Questions: Disadvantages (2)

Respondents may be forced to select answers that don’t represent their real thoughts or behaviour - reducing the internal validity

Participants may select ‘don’t know’ and so answers may not be informative