Chapter 6: Surveys and Observations Flashcards
1
Q
Open Ended Questions
A
- That allow respondents to answer any way they like
- Various responses to open ended questions provide researchers with spontaneous, rich information
- Drawback is that the responses must be coded and categorized, therefore, researchers in psychology often restrict the answers people can give
- Advantages: Can get a lot of information since answers are not restricted
- Disadvantages: Hard to analyze and compare responses and Time consuming
Example: What do you think about your manager?
Answer any way they want
2
Q
Forced - Choice Format
A
- In which people give their opinion by picking the best of two or more options
- Are often used in political polls, such as asking which of two or three candidates respondents plan to vote for
- Advantages: Easy to analyze
- Disadvantage: Getting limited information
Example: Do you like your manager? Yes or No
- Providing a response option
- Participants are forced to choose an answer
3
Q
Likert - Type Scale
A
- People are presented with a statement and are asking to use a rating scale to indicate their degree of agreement
- When such a scale contains more than one item and each response value is labeled with the specific terms strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree and not strongly disagree is called likert scale
- If it does not follow this format exactly (e.g., if it has only one item, or if it response labels are a bit different from the original Likert labels) it may be called Likert type scale
4
Q
Leading Question
A
- One whose wording leads poeple to a particular response becuase it explains why some people oppose law
Example: example: How fast do you think the car was going when he smashed into the other car?
- Suggesting a certain response
- Responses are affected by how the wuestions are phrased
5
Q
Double - Barreled Question
A
- Where it asks two questions in one
- It has poor constrcut validty because people might be responding to the first hald of the question, the second half or both
6
Q
Negatively Worded Question
A
- Another way survey items can be uncessarily complicated
- Whenever a question contains negative phrasing, it can casue confusion, thereby reducing the construct validty of a sruevy or poll
Example: People who do not drive with a suspended licenses should never be punished Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Agree
- Difficult to understand the question
- If the people are confused by the question, the response won’t be accurate
- Interfere with people’s true opinions
7
Q
Question Order
A
- The order in which questions are asked can also affect the responses to a survey
- The earliest questions can change the way respondents understand and answer the later questions
- The most direct way to control for the effect of question order is to prepare different versions of a survey, with the questions in different sequences
- If the results for the first order differ from the results for the second order, researchers can report both sets of results separately. In addition, they might be safe in assuming that people’s endorsement of the first question on any survey is unaffected by previous questions
8
Q
Advantages of Self - Report
A
- People are usually their own best experys
- Acess to thoughts, feelings, and intentions (others only have access to these IF you reveal to them)
- Difinitional truth: The data are true by definition is one is assessing what people think about themselves (e.g., self - esteem)
- Cost effective
9
Q
Are Respondent’s Response Accurate?
A
- Sometimes people use shortcuts
- Trying to look good (answers can be bias, responding with a positive response to look good to others)
- Self - reporting “more then they can know”
- Self - reporting memories of events
- Carelessness
- Rating products
10
Q
Acquiescence
A
- Saying yes to all the questions
- This occurs when people say “yes” or “strongly agree” to every item instead of thinking carefully about each one
- It can threaten construct validity because instead of measuring the construct of true feelings of well being, the survey could be measuring the tendency to agree, or the lack of motivation to think carefully
Example: yeah - saying
11
Q
Fence Sitting
A
- Choosing the response in the middle
- Being neutral - Hurts the construct validity only if the true response is not a neutral response
- Playing it safe by answering in the middle of the scale, especially when survey items are controversial
- Might also answer in the middle when a question is confusing or unclear
- It can weaken a survey’s construct validity when middle of the road scores suggest that some respondents don’t have an opinion, when they actually do
- Drawback is that sometimes people really do not have an opinion or an answer, so for them, having to choose a side is an invalid representation of their truly neutral stance
12
Q
Informant’s Reports
A
- Acquaintances, co - workers, family members
- May be more accurate than self - judgments for extremely desirable or undesirable traits
- Particularly used in personality assessment
- Large amount of information
- Real world biases
- Definitional truth
13
Q
Disadvantages of Informant’s Reports
A
- Limited behaviroial information: People be different in different contexts
- Lack of access to priveate experience
- Error: More liklely to remember behaviors that are extreme, unusual or emotionalily arousing
- Bias
- Recommendatio effect - tend to give a more positive response
- Prejudice and sterotyping
14
Q
Observer Bias
A
- When observer see what they expect to see
- Expectations affect their perception
- Observer bias occurs when observers expectations influence their interpretation of the participants behaviors or the outcome of the study
- Observers rate behaviors according to their own expectations or hypotheses
Example: man interviewing a job, and tell us that the man is doctoral professor at BU but tells the other half he is a criminal
Your bias will influence our observation
15
Q
Observer Effects
A
- Also known as expectancy effects
- Affects participants behavior
- Observer influence influence the participants behavior
- It is problematic when observer biases affect researchers own interpretations of what they see
- Known as observer effects, or expectancy effects, this phenomenon can occur even in seemingly objective observations
