Self-Report Flashcards
What is self-report?
It is any method which involves collecting data on people by asking them questions about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and thoughts
What are the two main self-report techniques?
Questionnaire
Interview
What is one strength of using self-report?
It can potentially enable the researcher to access peoples thoughts.
What are open questions?
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
What type of data do open questions provide?
Qualitative data- leave respondents to consider their own answer
What are closed questions?
Given answers/options for participants to chose from (chose the most appropriate)
What type of data do closed questions provide?
Provide quantitative data
What are the advantages of closed questions?
- Easier and quicker for participants to respond
- The data collected is easy to compare and analyse
What are the disadvantages of closed questions?
- Restricts participants answers
- Difficult to give real reasons for behaviour/answer
What are the advantages of an open question?
- Gives participants flexibility/options to gives their real reasons for behaviour
- Researchers gain real in depth reasons for participant behaviour
What are the disadvantages of open questions?
- 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
How are rating scales completed?
Person completes rating scale by making a mark at an appropriate point along a numerical dimension to indicate the direction/strength of their attitude
What can rating scales relate to and give an example?
Attitudes (eg. 1 = really bad and 10 = really good)
Emotions/feelings (eg. 1= really sad and 10 = really happy)
What can even-numbered rating scales cause?
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
What are the advantages of rating scales?
- 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
What are the disadvantages of rating scales?
- 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)
What are likert scale?
Scales which comprise a number of statements for each of which participant indicates whether they strongly agree/ agree/ are undecided/ disagree or strongly disagree
How does a likert scale control for a standard response set?
Half the statements selected represent a positive attitude and the other half represent a negative attitude.
What is one issue with likert scales?
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)
What are the two different types of rating scales?
Likert scales
Semantic differentials