Research methods - self report

Question 1

What is a self report method?

Answer 1

Any method that involves asking a participant about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and so on

Question 2

What are the most common types of self report methods used in psychology?

Answer 2

Interviews
Questionnaires

Question 3

What are some strengths of using a self report method?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What are some weaknesses of using a self report method?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What are some strengths of using a questionaire?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What are some weaknesses of using a questionaire?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

what is a structured interview?

Answer 7

The interviewer will not deviate from the interview schedule or probe beyond the answers received

Question 8

What are some strengths of using a structured interview?

Answer 8

Easy to replicate
Quick to conduct

Question 9

What are some weaknesses of using a structured interview?

Answer 9

Not flexible
Answers lack detail and only closed questions are asked which only produce quantitative data

Question 10

What is a semi structured interview?

Answer 10

An interview that has some structure but the interviewer is able to deviate

Question 11

What are some strengths of using a semi structured interview?

Answer 11

More standardised than an unstructured interview
More flexible than a structured interview
Collects a lot of data

Question 12

What are some weaknesses of using a semi structured interview?

Answer 12

Not completely standardised
Dependant on skill of the interviewer

Question 13

What is an unstructured interview?

Answer 13

Interviews that have no set questions and allow the interviewer to ask open ended questions

Question 14

What are some strengths of an unstructured interview?

Answer 14

More flexible as questions can be adapted and changed depending on the respondants answers
Generate qualititative data

Question 15

What are some weaknesses of using an unstructured interview?

Answer 15

Time consuming
Expensive to employ and train interviewers

Question 16

What are the two types of questions that can be used?

Answer 16

Open and closed

Question 17

What is a closed question?

Answer 17

Restrict the options available to participants answering the questions
E.g. yes or no

Question 18

What is an open question?

Answer 18

No restriction on the answers participants can give

Question 19

What is a strength of a closed question?

Answer 19

Easy to analyse
Allows for the collection of a lot of data quickly

Question 20

What is a weakness of closed questions?

Answer 20

Less meaningful as people cannot explain their answers

Question 21

What is a strength of using an open question?

Answer 21

Able to explain meaning behind an answer (qualitative data)

Question 22

What is a weakness of an open question?

Answer 22

Can be difficult to analyse

Question 23

What is a rating scale?

Answer 23

Numerical scales on which participants can indicate the extent or strength of some measure

Question 24

What is a likert scale?

Answer 24

Begins with a statement and ask the participants to what extent they agree on a scale of 1-7

Question 25

What is a semantic differential scale?

Answer 25

Participants are given two extreme descriptive words to rate their response. E.g. boring and exciting or social and antisocial

Question 26

What are some strengths of using a scale?

Answer 26

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)

Question 27

What are some strengths of using a scale?

Answer 27

Data does not provide in depth resoning behind responses
Tendancy with likert scales for people to respond towards the middle of the scale

Question 28

What are some weaknesses of using a scale?

Answer 28

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