Self report- research methods Flashcards
Questionnaire
written methods of gathering data, which do not necessarily require researcher to be present
Those who answer a questionnaire are known as respondents
They can be used to gather a lot of detailed information from a wide sample.
Interviews
involve direct verbal questioning by the researcher and vary in terms of how structured questions are
Open Questions
Definition: Do not suggest possible answers, but leave respondent to consider their own answer. There are no options to choose from.
E.g. What is your opinion about eating in classrooms?
Closed Questions
A form of fixed choice questions where the respondent is asked to select an answer from 2 or more choices
E.G Do you think eating should be allowed in a classroom? Yes / No
Closed question advantages:
Easier and quicker for the participants to respond
The data collected is easy to compare and analyse
Open questions advantages:
Provides more rich detailed data
Doesn’t force participants to give a particular response
Closed questions disadvantages:
Can force participants to select an option which isn’t true for them.
Lacks reason for why they selected the option they did
Only thing we can calculate is mode
Open questions disadvantages:
Time communing to complete by the participants and for the researcher to analyse the response collected.
Response may not be relevant to what the researcher was interested in
Rating scales
require the respondent to mark how strongly they feel about a certain subject.
Advantages of a rating scale
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.
Disadvantage of a rating scale
There can be a tendency for participants to choose the middle scale so they don’t look too extreme.
Rating scales still don’t give you an idea of WHY participants have chosen that option.
People might not be consistent in how they interpret the scale
Likert Scales
One form of rating scales is called Likert Scales
These are attitude scales in which the respondent is given a statement and asked to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with it
Standard response set
If I have loads of similar looking scales, and you agree with the first few, you could easily find yourself always picking ‘agree’ on the scales
Smoke screen questions
To try to avoid this you can vary the statement wording so that some are positive and some are negative
Semantic Differentials
These make use of polar opposites and respondents indicate where they would place their feelings in relation to the topic in question.
What is an ethics statement
An ethics statement 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.
Advantages of interviews:
Can ask follow up questions based on response given.
Can get more detailed answers to questions than questionaries provide
You can build a report with interviews. read their body language
Disadvantages of interviews:
may not get full answers to questions
Can be more time communing to complete
More difficult to analyse if open questions
Advantage of questionaries:
Can answer then more anonymously so more likely to answer embarrassing questions.
Quicker to complete for participants (usually involve more closed questions)
Can collect large amount of data by sending out to participants.
Participants can take more time to consider response
Disadvantage of questionaries:
People may not return questionaries leading to low response rate
People may misunderstand or interpret then differently to how intended (reduces validity)
Structured interview
fixed predetermined questions – no room for follow up.
Semi-structured interview
Interviewer asks some pre-planned questions but then is able to ask follow up questions based on interviewee’s responses.
Unstructured interview
There is a topic but no fixed questions or ways of answering
Strengths of structured
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.
Weaknesses of structured interview
The interviewer cannot ask any addition questions. This may prevent them from seeking further clarification on a point or not following up on an interesting point.
Strengths of semi-structured interview
Allows the interviewer to use additional questions to seek clarification on a response, or to explore an interesting comment made during one of the set questions.
Weaknesses of 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.
Strengths of 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.
Weaknesses of unstructured interview
Difficult to compare responses from the different participants, as they may be asked very different questions from each other
The questionnaire or interview contains leading questions
It would mean that participants aren’t expressing their genuine views-instead, they are expressing the view they feel led towards which reduces validity. To overcome the experimenter should avoid asking questions of this kind- make them deliberately non-leading
Participants give answers that they think will present them in a good light (socially desirable)
Reduces validity as participants aren’t expressing their genuine view- instead, they are expressing the view that they think will make them look best. Therefore, do not ask respondents to record their name on the questionnaire.
The questionnaire or structured interview contains forced-choice questions in which the respondents must choose one item from the limited range available.
This reduces validity as participants aren’t expressing their genuine views- what they are doing is expressing the view which is closet to their genuine view (although it may not be very close at all) Therefore ton overcome their should be an other option.
Respondents try to work out the real aim of the researcher (respond ton demand characteristic) and give the researcher the answer they think the researcher wants
Reduces validity because Participants aren’t expressing their genuine views-instead, they are expressing the view that they think the researcher is looking for (and which will be of most help to her and her research.) To overcome it they have a smokescreen questions to disguise the aim of the study
Respondents lapse into a standard response set, giving the same answer to all questions without really thinking about what is being asked (always ticking agree in the Likert scale)
Reduces validity because Participants aren’t expressing their genuine view-instead, they are just giving answers without really thinking about what they are doing. To overcome it you should reverse some of the statements so that ‘strongly agree’ doesn’t always express a positive attitude toward the object.
Respondents are asked to record their name on the questionnaire or have it written down against the interview
Reduces validity because Participants aren’t expressing their genuine views- as they will be aware that their responses can be traced back to them, they might ‘censor’ some extreme views. To overcome guarantee participants anonymity.
Data from open questions require a lot of analysis to group it together into categories. There is the risk of researcher bias (the researcher interpreting responses in a way that suggest they are supporting the theory)
Reduces validity because The way the data is analysed may not reflect participants’ genuine views-instead it reflects what the researcher had been hoping the participants would say. To overcome this get an independent researcher who is ‘blind’ to the aim of the study to analyse the data
A large number of questions are asked about the same thing
Improves internal reliability because you can test to see if their responses to all the questions are consistent with each other
A questionnaire is repeated with several different groups of people and similar results are obtained each time.
Improves it- helps to establish that the researcher has high external reliability as consistent findings are being found.
The way the questionnaire is administered means that some respondents complete it on their own while others complete it in the company of their friends.
Reduces it- can’t compare participants to each other because they had a different experience of answering the questionnaire – some may be affected by the responses of those around them (internal reliability would be low)
The questionnaire is sent out to a large number of people but the response rate is low, meaning that very few completed questionnaires are returned.
Reduces it- Not a large enough sample to suggest that the effect is consistent rather than due to fluke results (external)
Unstructured interviews are used, meaning that different interviewees are asked different questions.
Reduces it- Different people have different questions to answer so it would be difficult to compare the results of each interview. Their experience of the interview is not consistent (internal).
A questionnaire contains ambiguous questions (they are open to more than one interpretation.
Reduces it- participants answer the questions differently depending on how they interpret them (internal).
The researcher compares the responses from the odd-numbered questions with those from the even-numbered questions. They find the answers are very similar across the two halves of the questionnaire/interview
Increases it- there seems to be a high split-half reliability means the questions are asking about similar concepts (so the questionnaire has internal reliability)
