Self-Report Flashcards

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1
Q

What is self-report?

A

It is any method which involves collecting data on people by asking them questions about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and thoughts

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2
Q

What are the two main self-report techniques?

A

Questionnaire
Interview

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3
Q

What is one strength of using self-report?

A

It can potentially enable the researcher to access peoples thoughts.

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4
Q

What are open questions?

A

Ask a participant to respond to a set question but leave a blank underneath the question so participants can answer in any style they like.
They assess a person’s emotions or the reason why people act in a specific way

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5
Q

What type of data do open questions provide?

A

Qualitative data- leave respondents to consider their own answer

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6
Q

What are closed questions?

A

Given answers/options for participants to chose from (chose the most appropriate)

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7
Q

What type of data do closed questions provide?

A

Provide quantitative data

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8
Q

What are the advantages of closed questions?

A
  • Easier and quicker for participants to respond
  • The data collected is easy to compare and analyse
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9
Q

What are the disadvantages of closed questions?

A
  • Restricts participants answers
  • Difficult to give real reasons for behaviour/answer
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10
Q

What are the advantages of an open question?

A
  • Gives participants flexibility/options to gives their real reasons for behaviour
  • Researchers gain real in depth reasons for participant behaviour
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11
Q

What are the disadvantages of open questions?

A
  • Time consuming to complete by the participants and for the researcher to analyse the responses collected
  • Responses may not be relevant to what the researcher desired
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12
Q

How are rating scales completed?

A

Person completes rating scale by making a mark at an appropriate point along a numerical dimension to indicate the direction/strength of their attitude

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13
Q

What can rating scales relate to and give an example?

A

Attitudes (eg. 1 = really bad and 10 = really good)
Emotions/feelings (eg. 1= really sad and 10 = really happy)

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14
Q

What can even-numbered rating scales cause?

A

They cause participants to have a FORCED CHOICE making them suggest a positive or negative leaning in their opinion even if they don’t have one

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15
Q

What are the advantages of rating scales?

A
  • It gives the researcher an idea of how strongly a participant feels about something
  • It is more detailed than a simple yes or no answer
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16
Q

What are the disadvantages of rating scales?

A
  • There can be a tendency for participants to chose the middle of the scale so they don’t look to extreme
  • Vulnerable to RESPONSE SETS (answer questions in a methodical manner unrelated to their subject)
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17
Q

What are likert scale?

A

Scales which comprise a number of statements for each of which participant indicates whether they strongly agree/ agree/ are undecided/ disagree or strongly disagree

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18
Q

How does a likert scale control for a standard response set?

A

Half the statements selected represent a positive attitude and the other half represent a negative attitude.

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19
Q

What is one issue with likert scales?

A

The number of internal they contain
- Normally contain 5 (odd) statements which enables an ‘undecided option’ if participants have no view in the matter
- An even number of statements can force a participant to have an opinion when in reality they don’t (reduces validity)

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20
Q

What are the two different types of rating scales?

A

Likert scales
Semantic differentials

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21
Q

What are semantic differential scales?

A

They are rating scales which make use if polar opposite terms such as good/bad, strong/weak

22
Q

When would you use a questionnaire method?

A

If the researcher wishes to gain QUANTITATIVE data from a LARGE sample or participants fairly QUICKLY

23
Q

When would you use an interview method?

A

If the researcher wishes to gain IN-DEPTH data from representatives of a fairly NARROW target population

24
Q

What are the three different types of interviews?

A
  • Structured
  • Semi-structured
  • Unstructured
25
Q

Which is the most commonly used type of interview?

A

Semi-structured

26
Q

What is a structured interview?

A

The interviewer asks the same questions to each participant in the same order (often used closed questions with the interviewee picking the answer closest to their opinion

27
Q

What are the strengths of a structured interview?

A
  • Using the same questions means the interviews is standardised and replicable as it can be repeated in the same way for each participant
  • Important/busy people feel more secure knowing question areas
28
Q

What are the weaknesses of a structured interview?

A

The interviewer cannot ask any additional questions- may prevent seeking further clarification on a point/can’t follow up interesting comments

29
Q

What is a semi-structured interview?

A

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 in the interview in response to answers given by the interviewee

30
Q

What are the strengths of a semi-structured interview?

A

Allows the interviewer to use additional questions to seek clarification on a response or explore an interesting comment made by participants during a set of questions

31
Q

What are the weaknesses of a semi-structured interview?

A

Although allows some flexibility the interview is still likely to be constrained around the pre-determined questions
Any additional questions not decided beforehand may vary for each participant making it difficult to compare

32
Q

What is an unstructured interview?

A

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, with further questions being developed in response to the interviewees answers

33
Q

What are the strengths of an unstructured interview?

A

The interview allows for information to be gathered that might not be revealed from, pre-determined questions
It allows the interviewer the freedom to ask on the spot questions which could be relevant

34
Q

Hat are the weaknesses of an unstructured interview?

A

Difficult to compare responses from the different participants as they may be asked very different questions from each other

35
Q

What are the advantages of a questionnaire method?

A

It is easy to collect a lot of varied data from a large group of people
Easy to keep confidential

36
Q

What are the disadvantages of questionnaires?

A

It can be difficult to design a good questionnaire
Response rate is often low
Respondents may be untruthful

37
Q

What are the advantages of the interview method?

A

It can be good meet with people face to face, reas their body language and build a good rapport/relationship with them

38
Q

What are the disadvantages of the interview method?

A

Often interviewers only see one student at a time so it can be time consuming to collect a lot of data
Lack of confidentiality may mean interviewees won’t reveal anything (social desirability bias)

39
Q

What is face validity?

A

How accurate the measure looks at first glance

40
Q

What is concurrent validity?

A

Whether the test gives the same results as other studies

41
Q

What is criterion validity?

A

Can the test predict results on another test

42
Q

What are the validity problems for questionnaires and interviews?

A
  • Contains LEADING QUESTIONS
  • Participants give ‘socially desirable’ answers
  • Contains FORCED CHOICE questions
  • Respondents work out real aim and respond with demand characteristics
  • Respondents lapse into a standard response set
  • Censor extreme views due to accountability
  • Risk of RESEARCHER BIAS when interpreting data
43
Q

What is a standard response set?

A

Giving the same answer to all the questions without rant thinking about what is being asked

44
Q

What is researcher bias?

A

When the researcher interprets responses in a way which suggest/support their theory

45
Q

How do you overcome the problem of LEADING QUESTIONS (validity)?

A

Don’t use/avoid leading questions

46
Q

How do you overcome the problem of socially desirable answers (validity)?

A

Guarantee the anonymity of participants

47
Q

How do you overcome the problem of FORCED CHOICE questions (validity)?

A

Don’t ask forced choice questions and have ‘other’ or ‘please specify’ options at the bottom

48
Q

How do you overcome the problem of demand characteristics (validity)?

A

Have ‘smokescreen’ / ‘filter’ questions to disguise the aim of the study

49
Q

How do you overcome the problem of standard response set (validity)?

A

Reverse some of the statements so that ‘strongly agree’ doesn’t always express a positive attitude towards the subject

50
Q

How do you overcome the problem of censorship of extreme views (validity)?

A

Don’t ask respondents to record their name therefore it cannot be traced back to them

51
Q

How do you overcome the problem of researcher bias (validity)?

A

Get an independent researcher who is ‘blind’ to the aim of the study to analyse the data

52
Q

Evaluate the reliability of self-report methods?

A
  • A large number of questions are asked about the same thing
  • A questionnaire is repeated with several different groups of people with similar results each time
  • The way the questionnaire is administered means some respondents complete it alone whilst others in the company of their friends
  • The questionnaire is sent out to a large number of people but the response rate is low
  • Unstructured interview are used meaning that different interviewees are Ames different questions
  • A questionnaire contains ambiguous questions
  • The researcher compares the response from odd-numbered questions with those from even numbered questions (split half reliability)