Self report: questionnaires and interviews Flashcards
What are questionnaires?
Set of written questions designed to collect information.
Can discover what people think and feel (so you don’t have to guess).
Can provide qualitative or quantitative data.
It is used to assess the dependent variable.
What does quantitative mean?
Data in the format of numbers (numerical data).
Closed questions with fixed options produce this.
What does qualitative mean?
Data in the form of words.
Open questions produce this.
What is a Likert scale?
A Likert scale is one in which the respondent indicates their agreement with a statement using a scale of usually five points. The scale ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
What is a rating scale?
A rating scale works in a similar way to Likert scales but gets respondents to identify a value that represents their strength of feeling about a particular way.
What is a fixed choice option?
A fixed choice option item includes a list of possible options and respondents are required to indicate those that apply to them.
Writing good questionnaire questions
Clarity - don’t use double negatives or double barrelled questions.
Jargon - Avoid using questions full of jargon.
Bias - don’t use leading questions.
Analysis - questions need to be written so that they’re easy to analyse.
Open/closed questions: hard/easy to analyse
Open questions - hard to analyse.
Closed questions - easy to analyse.
Strengths of questionnaire
Can collect qualitative and quantitative data.
Can reach more people - less time-consuming and expensive.
Anonymity.
Standardised question=standard response.
Can be done in their own time, so they can think about the questions.
May feel more comfortable revealing personal/confidential information.
Can be completed without an investigator present.
Reduces experimenter bias.
No special training is needed.
Can provide unexpected responses.
Easy to summarise.
Limitations of a questionnaire
Can’t be tailored to the person/follow up questions can’t be asked.
Not everyone will fill out the form - potential low response rate.
People can lie easily - demand characteristics, social desirability.
If they don’t understand the question then they can’t ask to clarify.
Using closed questions limits the responses.
Can only be filled out by those who can read and write.
Bias - acquiescence bias.
What is social desirability bias?
When someone changes their answer to be more socially acceptable.
What is acquiescence bias?
When someone agrees with the question/ticks the same box all the way down out of apathy.
What is a structured interview?
It has pre-determined questions. It is essentially a questionnaire that is delivered face-to-face or over the phone.
There is no deviation from the original questions.
What is an unstructured interview?
New questions are developed during the course of the interview.
The interviewer may begin with general aims and possibly a few pre-determined questions but subsequent questions develop on the basis of the answers given.
It works more like a conversation between the investigator and the participant.
What is a semi-structured interview?
Many interviews fall between the two types. This is the sort of interview that you are likely to encounter in everyday life, like a job interview.
There is a list of questions that have been worked out in advance, but interviewers are also free to ask follow up questions when they feel it is appropriate.
