Self Report Techniques

Question 1

What are self report techniques?

Answer 1

• Any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions of behaviours related to a given topic

Question 2

What is a questionairre?

Answer 2

• Most common type of self-reprot technique
• Set of written questions used to asses a persons thoughts/experiences
• May be used to assess dependant variable

Question 3

What is an open & closed question?

Answer 3

Open Question:
- Does not have fixed range of answers & respondents free to answer in any way they wish
- Produces qualitative data, wide range of diff responses but hard to analyse

Closed Question:
- Offers fixed No. of responses e.g. yes or no, or scale of 1-10
- Quantitiative data- easy to analyse but may lack depth & detail associated w open questions
- Closed Q’s that produce qualitative data can be turned into quantitative data by e.g. counting No. of yes & no responses

Question 4

What are the 3 types of interviews?

Answer 4

Structured Interviews:
- Made up of set of pre-determined questions that are asked in fixed order- like questionairre but conducted face to face- interviewer asks & waits for response

Unstructured Interviews
- Works like a conversation- no set questions, general aim that certain topic will be discussed & interaction is free flowing, interviewee is encouraged to expand & elaborate their answers promted by interviewer

Semi Structure Interviews:
- E.g. 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 based on previous answers

Question 5

What are the strengths & weaknesses of questionairres?

Answer 5

Strengths:
- Questionairres are cost effective, can gather large amounts of data quickly because they can be distributed to large amounts of people
- Can be completed without researcher being present which reduces effort involved
- Data lends itself to statistical analysis & comparisons between groups of people can be made using graphs & charts

Weaknesses:
- Responses given may not always be truthful- respondents may be keen to represent themselves in positive light- demand characterisitcs & social desirability
- Q’s can often produce response bias, where repsondants tend to reply in similar way e.g. always ticked yes- aquescience bias- particular form of response bias

Question 6

What are the strengths & weaknesses of structured & unstructured interviews?

Answer 6

Strengths:
- Structured interviews, questions are straightforward to replicate due to their standardised format
- Much more flexibility in unstructured interview than strucutred- much more likely to gain insight into world of interviewee as interviewer can follow up

Weaknesses:
- Strcutured- HWVR, limits richness of researcher data as interviewers dont deviate from one topic to another
- Unstructured- Analysis of unstructured interview is not straight forward, researcher may have to sift through much irrelevant information- drawing firm conclusions may be difficult