10. Self Report Technique Flashcards
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 a given topic.
What is a questionnaire ?
A set of written questions used to assess a persons thought and/or experiences
Why is a question are used as part of an experiment ?
To assess the dependent variable
What are open questions ?
It does not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way they wish
What are closed questions ?
They offer a fixed number of responses
What type of data do you get from open questions ?
Qualitative
What type of data do you get from closed questions ?
Quantitative data
What is an interview ?
A live encounter where the interviewer asks a set of questions to assess an interviewees thoughts and/or experiences
What is a structured interview ?
They are made up of a predetermined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order
What is an unstructured interview ?
There are no set questions, so it works a lot like a conversation. There is a general aim that a certain topic will be discussed and interaction tends to be free flowing and the interviewee is the encouraged to elaborate on their answers
What is a semi structured interview ?
There is a list of questions that have been worked out in advance but interviewers are free to ask follow up questions when they feel it is appropriate
What are the strengths of questionnaires?
- cost effective
- less time consuming with minimal effort
- data is usually straightforward to analyse
What are the limitations of questionnaires?
- social desirability bias is a demand characteristic
- response bias
- acquiescence bias
What is response bias ?
This is where respondents answering questions on a questionnaire tend to reply in a similar way e.g always ticking yes
What is social desirability bias ?
type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others
What is acquiescence bias ?
Tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content of the question
What are the strengths of a closed question ?
- produces quantitative data so you can easily analyse and compare it
- easier and quicker for respondents to answer
- less confused answers or irrelevant answers
- replication is easier
What are the disadvantages of closed questions ?
- clerical mistakes
- less in depth and lack of detail
- simplistic responses
What are the advantages of open questions ?
- infinite number of answers
- collect more detail
- gain unexpected insights on topic
What are the disadvantages of an open question ?
- some answers may be subjective
- they can take longer to complete resulting in an increase in survey fatigue
- decrease in completion rate
What are the advantages for structured interviews ?
- easy to replicate
- standardised format
- Structured interviews are quick to conduct which means that many interviews can take place within a short amount of time. This means a large sample can be obtained resulting in the findings being representative and having the ability to be generalized to a large population.
What are the disadvantages of structured interviews ?
- not flexible in terms of elaborating their points
- lacks detail
What are the advantages for an unstructured interview ?
- flexible as questions can be adapted and changed depending on the respondents’ answers
- qualitative data through the use of open questions. This allows the respondent to talk in some depth
- increased validity because it gives the interviewer the opportunity to probe for a deeper understanding, ask for clarification
What are the disadvantages of an unstructured interview?
- It can be time consuming to conduct an unstructured interview and analyze the qualitative data
- social desirability bias
- Employing and training interviewers is expensive as they need to be able to establish a rapport
