self report techniques

what is a self report technique ?

any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions, behaviours and/or experiences related to the given topic

what is a questionnaire ?

the most common types of self-report technique

they are a pre-list of written questions/items to which participants respond to asses a persons thoughts and/or experiences

may be used as part of an experiment to asses the dependant variable

what is the dependant variable ?

This is what is variable the is effected by the independent variable

what style of questions can be used in a questionnaire

open question

closed question

what is an open question ?

this does not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way they wish

what type of data do open questions tend to produce

qualitative data the contains a wide range of different questions but may be difficult to analyse

what is a closed question ?

this offers a fixed number of responses e.g. yes or no questions

what type of data is produced by closed questions and what are the pros +cons

quantitative data - this is usually easy to analyse but lacks depth and detail associated with an open question

what are interviews

this is alive encounter where one person asks a set questions to assess the interviewees thoughts and/or experiences

what is a structured interview ?

are pre-determined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order. done face to face or phone to phone

interviewer asks the questions and waits for a response

what is an unstructured interview ?

it more like a conversation - thee are no set questions. There is a general aim that a certain topic will be discussed, and interactions tend to be free flowing

the interviewee is encouraged to elaborate their answers as prompted by the interviewer

what is a semi-structured interview

this is a sort of interview that usually occurs in everyday life. - job interview

there is a list of questions that have been worked in advanced but interviewers are also free to ask follow-up questions based on previous answers

What is a strength of questionnaires

cost effective

can gather large amounts of data quickly - distributed to to large amounts of people

can be completed without the researcher being present

produces data that is straight forward to analyse- particularly if the question comprises mainly f fixed-choice close questions

lends itself to statistical analysis+ comparisons between groups of people can be made using graphs + charts

What is a limitation of questionnaires ?

the response given may not always be truthful

respondents may be keen to present themselves in a positive light + this may influence their answers

demand characteristics + social desirability may occur

may produce response bias -where Ps only tick yes or answer the same favoured end of a rating scale

How does response bias occur when doing questionnaires

respondents complete the questionnaire too quicky and fail to read the question properly

What is acquiescence bias (yea -saying)

this is the tendency to agree with items on a question regardless of the context of th question

What id Douglas Jackson and Samuel Messick demonstrate about the acquiescence bias using the F- scale

the F-scale is a standard questionnaire that measures authoritarianism.

they created a reversed version of the F-scale where all the items were the opposite in meaning to the original questionnaire

They gave both the original an reversed version to the same group of respondents and found a strong positive correlation between the two sets of result

What is a strength of structured question?

straight forwards to replicate due to their standardised format

reduces difference between interviewers

what are the limitations of structured interviews ?

not possible for interviewers to deviate from the topic r explain their questions and this will limit the richness of the data collected as well as limit unexpected information

what is an advantage of an unstructured interviews?

The interviewer can follow up points as they arise and is much more likely to gain insight into the world view of the interviewee - including eliciting unexpected info

a skilled + experienced interviewer should be able to establish sufficient rapport with Ps - so when sensitive + personal topics are discussed any response that is given is more truthful

what are the disadvantages of unstructured interviews ?

could lead to interviewer bias

analysis of data from an unstructured interview is not straight forward

drawing firm conclusions will be difficult as research has to sift through irrelevant info

interviewees may lie - social desirability