Self-report techniques Flashcards
What type of data is collected from closed questions?
Quantitative
What type of data is collected from open questions?
Qualitative
What are self-report techniques?
Any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions, behaviours and/or experiences related to a given topic.
What are questionnaires?
A set of written questions (sometimes referred to as ‘items’) used to assess a person’s thoughts and/or experiences
What are interviews?
A ‘live’ encounter (face-to-face or on the phone) where one person (the interviewer) asks a set of questions to assess an interviewee’s thoughts and/or experiences. The questions may be pre-set (as in a structured interview) or may develop as the interview goes along (unstructured interview)
What are structured interviews?
Any interview where the questions are decided in advance, basically a questionnaire delivered by a person
What are unstructured interviews?
The interview starts out with some general aims and possibly some question, and lets the interviewee’s answers guide subsequent questions
What are semi-structured interviews?
An interview that combines some predetermined questions (as in a structured interview) and some questions developed in response to answers given (as in an unstructured interview)
What is interviewer bias?
A type of human error committed by recruitment professionals wherein they form a baseless judgment about an interviewee. This kind of bias hinders them from assessing a candidate objectively, which greatly affects the purpose of the interview.
What are open questions?
Questions for which there is no fixed choice of response and respondents can answer in any way they wish. For example Why did you take up smoking?
What are closed questions?
Questions for which there is a fixed choice of responses determined by the question setter. For example Do you smoke? (yes/no)
What are 2 strengths of questionnaires?
- Once designed and tested, questionnaires can be
distributed to large numbers of people relatively
cheaply and quickly. This enabled a researcher to
collect data from a large sample of people - Respondents may be more willing to give personal
information in a questionnaire than in an
interview, where they may feel self-conscious and
more cautious
What is a weakness of questionnaires?
Questionnaires are only filled in by people who can read and write and have the time to fill them in. This means that the sample is biased.
What are 2 strengths of structured interviews?
- The main strength of a structured interview (as
well as an questionnaire) Is that it can be easily
repeated because the questions are standardised.
This means answers from different people can be
compared - This also means that they are easier to analyse
than an unstructured interview becuase answers
are more predictable
What are 2 weaknesses of structured interviews?
- Comparability may be a problem if the same
interviewer behaves differently on different
occasions or different interviewers behave
differently (low reliability) - A limitation of both structured and Unstructured
interviews is that the interviewer’s expectation
may influence the answers the interviewee gives
(interviewer bias)
What is a strength of unstructured interviews?
There is much more flexibility than in structured interview as the interviewer can follow up points as they arise and is much more likely to gain insight into the worldview of the interviewee, including eliciting unexpected information
What are 2 weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
- Analysis of data is also not straightforward – the
researcher may have to sift through much
irrelevant information and drawing firm
conclusions may be difficult - There is also an increased risk of interviewer bias
What are 2 strengths of open questions?
- Respondents can expand on their answers which
increases the amount and detail of information
collected - Open questions can provide unexpected answers,
thus allowing researchers to gain new insights into
people’s feelings and attitudes
What are 2 weaknesses of open questions?
- Most respondents may simply avoid giving
lengthy complex answers, therefore in practice
open questions may not actually provide detailed
extra information - Open questions produce qualitative data, which is
more difficult to summarise becuase there is likely
to be a wide range of responses. This makes it
harder to detect clear patterns and draw
conclusions
What is a strength of closed questions?
Closed questions have a limited range of answers and produce quantitative data, which means the answers are easier to analyse using graphs and measures such as the mean
What is are 2 weaknesses of closed questions?
- Participants may select “don’t know” or have a
preference to answer “yes” (an acquiescence bias)
and therefore the data collected are not
informative - Respondents may be forced to select answers that
don’t represent their real thoughts or behaviour.
This means that the data collected lacks validity
Writing good questionnaires - analysis?
Questions need to be written so that they are easy to analyse. Closed questions are easiest to analyse, but they may force people to select answers that don’t represent their real thoughts or behaviour. Whereas open questions may really represent their real thoughts or behaviour, but because everyone could potentially give a different answer, they are more difficult to analyse.
Writing good questionnaires - bias?
Questions should be free of bias. This is because any bias in a question could lead the respondent to be more likely to give a particular answer (a leading question or emotive language). The greatest problem is social desirability bias as participants may give answers to make themselves look more attractive, nicer, more generous etc. rather than being truthful.
Writing good questionnaires - clarity ?
Questions should be clear and unambiguous i.e. they should be written in a way that the respondent understands what is being asked (i.e. do not overuse jargon). The use of double negatives reduces clarity (e.g. Are you against banning capital punishment?), as do double barrelled questions (e.g. Do you suffer from sickness and headaches?)
