Self report Flashcards
What are open question?
Questions which ask a participant to respond to a set question but leave a blank underneath the question so participants can answers in whatever style they choose
What are closed questions?
Questions which give the answers to the participant so that they can choose the most appropriate answer for them
What are two advantages of closed questions?
Earlier and quicker for the participant to respond
The data collected is easy to compare and analyse
What are two disadvantages of closed questions?
Restricts participants answers
Difficult to give real reasons for behaviour
What are two disadvantages of open question?
Researcher gets in depth reasons for participants behaviour
Gives participants flexibility/options to give their real reasons for behaviour
What are two disadvantages of open questions?
Time consuming to complete and analyse
Responses might not be relevant to what the researcher requires
What are rating scales?
A scale which allows the participant to mark the strength and direction of their attitude. A question is given with a series of responses to choose from
What are three advantages of rating scales?
It is more detailed than a simple yes or no answers.
It still gives quantitative data that can be compared and easily repeated
Gives the researcher an idea of how strongly the participant feels about something
What are two disadvantages of rating scales?
There can be a tendency of participants to choose the middle scale so they don’t look too extreme.
Still don’t give an idea of why participants have chosen that option
What is a standard response set?
The tendency to give the same answer in response to all the different statements
How could you control for a standard response set?
Have half of the statements have agree to represent a positive attitude and the other half a negative attitude
What is a likert scale?
Composed of a number of statements for which the participants indicate whether they agree or disagree (with other options e.g strongly…)
What are semantic differentials?
A type of rating scale where an attitude object it given (e.g chocolate) and then the participants have to indicate between a series of bipolar adjectives where they would place their feelings in relation to chocolate (e.g tasty/gross)
What is a structured interview?
The interviewer asks the same questions to each participant in the same order. Closed questions are ofthen used
What is a semi- structured interview?
The interviewer will have a set of pre-prepared questions to ask and is expected to ask all of them; other questions will be developed during the interview in response to answers given by the interviewee
What is an unstructured interview?
The researcher has topics to discuss but these don’t have to be in the same order for each participant. The interview is more like a conversation
What are two strengths of a structured interview?
Using the same questions means the interview is standardised and can be repeated in the same way for all.
Important people may feel more secure knowing question areas.
What is a weakness of structured interviews?
Cannot ask additional questions. This may prevent them from seeking further clarification on a point or not filling up on something interesting
What is a strength of a semi-structured interview?
Allows the interviewer to use additional questions to seek clarification On a response or explore an interesting comment made
What are two weaknesses of semi-structured interviews?
Although there is some flexibility the interview is still likely to be contained around the set questions
Any additional questioning might vary making it difficult to compare between participants
What are two strengths of unstructured interviews?
Allows for information to be gathered that might not be revealed from set questions
It allows the interviewer to have the freedom to ask on the spot questions
What is a weakness of unstructured interviews?
Difficult to compare responses from the different participants, as they may be asked very different questions from each other
What are two advantages of questionnaires?
East to keep confidential
Easy to collect a lot of varied data from a large group of people
What are three disadvantages of questionnaires?
It can be difficult to design a good questionnaire
Response rate is often low
Respondents may be untruthful
What is a strength of interviews?
It can be good to meet with people face to face, read their body language/ develop a good relationship with them
What are two disadvantages of interviews?
Can be time consuming as often only one participant can be interviewed at a time
Lack of confidentiality
What is nominal data?
A headcount of the number of participants who do one thing compared to another
What is ordinal data?
The rank order in which data can be placed.
What is a weakness of ordinal data?
No account is taken of how much further the highest is from the second highest etc
What is interval or ratio data?
It takes into account bit just rank order but also individual results
What is social desirability?
When participants give answers that that think will present them in a good light
What is a leading question?
A type of question that may cause the participant to be more likely to give a particular answer
What are the key features of a questionnaire?
They are written methods of gaining data, they can be paper of electronic, they no not necessarily require the presence of the researcher
What are the key features of an interview?
Verbal questioning of the subject by a researcher (e.g face to face or on the phone)
