Research methods - self report Flashcards
What is a self report method?
Any method that involves asking a participant about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and so on
What are the most common types of self report methods used in psychology?
Interviews
Questionnaires
What are some strengths of using a self report method?
Directly asking a participant about their feelings can be much more useful than just observing
Scenarios can be asked about hypothetically without any need to actually set them up
What are some weaknesses of using a self report method?
Participants may try to give the ‘‘correct’’ response they believe researchers wanted or appear more socially desireable which can lead to inacurate data
Only works if participants are willing to expose the information to the experimenter
What are some strengths of using a questionaire?
Cost and time efficient (many can be distributed at once)
Easy to reach a wide range of participants
Able to be done privately and anonymously so gained responses should be valid
What are some weaknesses of using a questionaire?
Response rates are low making it hard to acurately generalise to the target population
Response bias: only certain types of people will return the questionaire
Lack of monitoring responses means participants may be less honest making results invalid
Respondants may misunderstand the question leading to invalid data
what is a structured interview?
The interviewer will not deviate from the interview schedule or probe beyond the answers received
What are some strengths of using a structured interview?
Easy to replicate
Quick to conduct
What are some weaknesses of using a structured interview?
Not flexible
Answers lack detail and only closed questions are asked which only produce quantitative data
What is a semi structured interview?
An interview that has some structure but the interviewer is able to deviate
What are some strengths of using a semi structured interview?
More standardised than an unstructured interview
More flexible than a structured interview
Collects a lot of data
What are some weaknesses of using a semi structured interview?
Not completely standardised
Dependant on skill of the interviewer
What is an unstructured interview?
Interviews that have no set questions and allow the interviewer to ask open ended questions
What are some strengths of an unstructured interview?
More flexible as questions can be adapted and changed depending on the respondants answers
Generate qualititative data
What are some weaknesses of using an unstructured interview?
Time consuming
Expensive to employ and train interviewers
What are the two types of questions that can be used?
Open and closed
What is a closed question?
Restrict the options available to participants answering the questions
E.g. yes or no
What is an open question?
No restriction on the answers participants can give
What is a strength of a closed question?
Easy to analyse
Allows for the collection of a lot of data quickly
What is a weakness of closed questions?
Less meaningful as people cannot explain their answers
What is a strength of using an open question?
Able to explain meaning behind an answer (qualitative data)
What is a weakness of an open question?
Can be difficult to analyse
What is a rating scale?
Numerical scales on which participants can indicate the extent or strength of some measure
What is a likert scale?
Begins with a statement and ask the participants to what extent they agree on a scale of 1-7
What is a semantic differential scale?
Participants are given two extreme descriptive words to rate their response. E.g. boring and exciting or social and antisocial
What are some strengths of using a scale?
They can give us an idea of how strongly a participant feels about something
Can be treated as quantitative data which can be analysed statistically (which is easier and quicker)
What are some strengths of using a scale?
Data does not provide in depth resoning behind responses
Tendancy with likert scales for people to respond towards the middle of the scale
What are some weaknesses of using a scale?
Data does not give in depth reasoning behind responses
Tendancy with likert scales for participants to gravitate towards the middle of the scale to appear less extreme
