self-report methods

what are self-report methods

involve participants giving informstion about thensekves usually through questionnaires or interviews which gather their thoughts, feelings, or opinions directly from individuals

what are the different types if self-report methods

- questionnaires

- interviews

what are questionnaires used for

to allow p's to provide information about their thoughts, feelings, or opinions comprosing of open questions, closed questions, or both

what are open questions

these allow participants to nswer in as much detail as they wish and are most likely to generate qualitative data, they are more realistic and produce richer information than closed questions

what are closed questions

restricts the participants to a predetermined set of responses and generate qualitative data, they are easier to score and produce more liable or consistent data usually using a likert scale

what are pros of open questions

- p;s use own wordings -> p's arent restructed by pre-determined responses so participants can offer detailed insight into their opinions

what are the cons of open questions

- time-consuming -> extensive responses in open questions take a lot of time to analyse and are open to the subjective interpretations of researchers

what are the pros of closed questions

- easy to analyse -> closed questions are easily analysed as the data can be quantified and patterns can be established

what are the cons of closed questions

- lack of quality -> for closed questions predetermined answers can limit the quality of information gathered from participants

what are the pros of questionnaires

- practical -> many ways researchers can create, distribute, and gather questionnaires so they can be done online or in person, they can be sent and returned via post, and this makes it quick and easy and convienient to gather data, researchers have access to large sample which can produce reliable results as anomalous results are averaged by the whole trend of data

- standardised questions -> can be replicated to check for reliability, uses test-retest method to check for external reliability and the split-half method can check for internal reliability

what are the cons of questionnaires

- response rate -> risk of not having al returned since they can be completed away from researcher and some may not have returned at all

- lack of information -> questionnaires only gather data when questions are answered so lacks opportunity to gather information on things such as body language

- social desirability bias -> people tend to under-report negative aspects or over-report positive aspects about themselves and any bias impairs the validity of the findings

what are interviews

these predominately take place face-to-face but can happen over the phone or online, responses are recorded with the use of an interview schedule that the interviewer completes and or an audio/video recording

what are the types of interviews

- structured

- semi-structured

- unstructured

what is a structured interview

where the interviewer uses a predtermined list of questions that are asked to all interviewees

what are the pros of a structured interview

- standardised -> questions are standardised meaning the interview itself is easy to replicate and test for reliability in interviewee anwsers

what are the cons of a structured interview

- interviewer effects -> possible that running several interviews following the same schedule with different p's so investigator effects so interviewer may unconsciously bias any responses given to the questions they ask by their tone of voice, intonations, body language, and so on

what is a semi-structured interview

the interviewer uses a few pre-determined questions but can deviate if interesting avenues arise

what is a pro of semi-structured interviews

- validity -> open questions may encourage participants to be honest in answers reducing social desirability bias as participants can justify their answers in their own words with opinions, interviewer still retains control which can result in investigator effects

what is a con of semi-structured interviews

- detail -> can gather large amounts of qualitative data so analysis can be difficult and time-consuming therefore expensive to conduct compared to quantitative data which is easier to statistically analyse without further processing beforehand

what is an unstructured interview

interviewer uses one or two prompt questions but the rets is determined by the interviewees responses

what is a pro of unstructured interviews

- validity -> can increase validity of research by reducing possibility of investigator effects, open question schedule means investigator does not control the diretion of conversation, p's can justify their awnsers in their own words rather than trying to guess the aim of the study through any clues given

what are the cons of unstructured interviews

- insight -> generate large quanitites of rich and interesting qualitative data meaning the data is time-consuming and costly to analyse because this type of interview requires trained osychologist to administer interviews and analyse the data