Self Report Flashcards
What are the two main self-report techniques?
- Questionarres
- Interviews
What are some features of a questionnaire?
- Written methods of gaining data.
- They may be completed by the participant or may act as a a set of questions that a researcher reads to the participant whose answers are recorded.
- Do not necessarily require the presence of the researcher.
What are some features of an interviews?
- Involve direct verbal questioning of the subject by the researcher.
- Can vary in how structured they are.
What is a person completing a questionnaire known as?
Respondent
What is a person being interviewed known as?
Interviewee
What is the main strength of self-report?
It can potentially enable the researcher to access people’s thoughts.
What is a closed question?
A form of fixed choice questions where the responding is given answers and they must choose the most appropriate answer for them.
What is an open question?
Ask a participant to respond to the set question but write on lines underneath in whatever style they choose. These questions are often used to assess a person’s emotions or the reason why they choose to do certain things.
What data can closed questions be easily turned into?
Quantitative data
What data can open questions be easily turned into?
Qualitative data.
What are the advantages of using closed questions?
- Easier and quicker for the participant to respond.
- The data collected is easy to compare and analyse.
What are the disadvantages of using closed questions?
- Can force participants to select an option which isn’t true for them.
- Lacks reasons for why they selected the option they did.
What are the advantages of using open questions?
- Provides more rich detailed data.
- Doesn’t force participants to give a particular response.
What are the disadvantages of using open questions?
- Tine consuming for the participant to comp,eye and for the researcher to analyse the responses collected.
- Responses may not be relevant to what the researcher was interested in.
What are rating scales?
- Used if a researcher wants to investigate people’s attitudes towards something.
- Involve the person competing it to make a mark at an appropriate point along a numerical dimension to indicate the direction and strength of their attitude.
What are the advantages of using 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).
- It still gives quantitative data that can be compared.
- It is easily repeated.
What are the disadvantages of using rating scales?
- People might not be consistent in how they interpret the scale (low reliability).
- Participants may just choose the middle option so they don’t look too extreme.
- Rating scales still don’t give you an idea of why participants have chosen that option.
What are Likert scales?
- Used to measure attitudes to certain ideas.
- They comprise of a number of statements for each of which participants indicate whether they strongly agree / agree / are undecided / disagree / strongly disagree.
- If possible, statements are selected so that for half the statements ‘agree’ represents a positive attitude towards the attitude object and for the other half it represents a negative attitude. This control got standard response set.
What is standard response set?
The tendency to give the same answer in response to all the different statements.
How many intervals should you include in a Likert scale?
An odd number (5 or 7) so that participants can choose ‘undecided’ if they truly have no view on the matter.
What are semantic differentials?
- Another type if rating scale.
- Make use of polar opposite terms and respondents indicate where they would place their feelings in relation to the topic in question.
- Whilst a series of spaces are required, no numbers are attached.
What are the three types of interviews?
- Structured
- Semi-structured
- Unstructured
What is a structured interview?
- The interviewer asks the same question to each participant in the same order.
- Closed questions are often used, with the interviewee picking the answer that is closest it their own view.
What are the strengths of a structured interview?
- Using the same questions means the interview is standardised and replicable as it can be repeated in the same way for each participant.
- Responses from each participant can be easily compared.
What are the weaknesses of a structured interview?
- The interviewer cannot ask any additional questions. This may prevent them from seeking further clarification on a point or not following up on an interesting point.
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 are the strengths of a semi-structured interview?
- Allows the interviewer to use additional questions to seek clarification on a response or to explore and interesting comment made during one of the set questions.
What are the weaknesses of a semi-structured interview?
- Although there is some flexibility the interview is still likely to be constrained around the pre-determined questions that are written.
- Any additional questions not decided beforehand may vary from participant to participant - making it difficult to compare.
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, with further questions being developed in response to the interviewee’s answers.
What are the strengths of an unstructured interview?
- The interview allows for information to be gathered that might not be revealed from pre-determined questions.
- It allows the interviewer to have the freedom to ask on the spot questions which could be relevant.
What are the weaknesses of an unstructured interview?
- Difficult to compare responses from the different participants as they may be asked very different questions from each other.
What are general advantages of questionarres?
- Can answer them more anonymously so more likely to get responses to embarrassing questions.
- Quicker to complete for participants (usually involve more closed questions).
- Can collect a large amount of data by sending out to participants.
- Participants can take more time to consider responses.
What are general disadvantages of questionarres?
- People may not return questionnaires leading to a low response rate.
- People may misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently to how you intended (making results invalid).
What are general advantages of interviews?
- Can ask follow up questions based on responses given.
- Can get more detailed answers than questionnaires provide.
- You can build a rapport with interviewees and read their body language.
What are general disadvantages of interviews?
- May not get full answers to questions.
- Can be more time consuming to complete.
- More difficult to analyse if open questions are used.
What is an ethics statement?
It informs participants of their rights such as being able to withdraw their data at any time from the research and checks that they give consent to take part.
