Self report techniques Flashcards
What is a self report?
A non experimental method that asks people about their experiences and beliefs — a person reports their own thoughts /feelings and it can include questionnaires or interviews
Questionnaires
Data collected through the use of written questions — allow the researcher to discover what people think and feel which is a contrast to observations where they rely on guessing what people think or feel as you are asking directly
Advantages of questionnaires
- cheap
- can be distributed to a large number of people quickly
- larger scale
- researcher can obtain larger sample of participants which makes research more valid
- respondents may feel more willing to reveal person/ confidential information rather than in an interview since you are not face to face and it can cause them to feel more self conscious
- reduced social desirability bias as compared to an interview
Disadvantages of a questionnaire
- are only filled by those who have time to fill them — can cause it to be biased
- not everyone would want to fill them out and it can be overlooked
- many people would want an incentive or money to be motivated to fill it out
Structured interview
Any interview in which the questions are decided in advance
- essentially a questionnaire that is delivered face to face with no deviation from the original questions
Advantages of a structured interview
- can be easily repeated making it more reliable as questions are standardised
- answers can be easily compared
- easier to analyse than unstructured interviews
Disadvantage of structured interview
- interviewer does not have the freedom to ask more questions
- may not be able to obtain the information that is really necessary
- cannot develop a rapport so the respondent may be less comfortable and not give truthful answers
- interviewers expectations may influence the answers of the respondent ( interviewer bias)
- required the interviewer to be skilled to prevent as much bias as possible - costs more moeny
Advantage of a structured interview
- can be easily repeated because the questions are standardised
- makes it more reliable
- easier to analyse than unstructured interviews
- peoples answers can be compared easily
Semi - structured interview
-The interview starts out with some general aims and possibly some questions, and lets the respondents answers guide questions
Disadvantages of semi structured interviews
- require interviewers with more skill as they have to develop new questions on the spot - expensive
- new questions may lack objectivity because of their instantaneous nature
Advantages of semi structures interviews
- more detailed information can be obtained because the interviewer is able to tailor the questions to specific responses
- can get deeper insights to the respondents thoughts and feelings
- can develop a rapport
Questionnaires and their different types of questions
Closed questions - the range of possible answers is fixed e.g listing five answers for the respondents to choose from
- can be easier to analyse but respondents may be forced to select answers that do not represent their true thoughts
- have a limited range of answers but produce quantitative data
- can use graphs to analyse and measure using a mean
Open questions
- infinite range of possible answers e.g “ What do you like most about your job?” and it may get you many different answers
- produce qualitative data
- disadvantages:can be more difficult to summarise because there is likely to be such a wide range of responses
- looking for patterns in behaviour and it much more difficult to draw conclusions about the behaviour being studied
Overall evaluation
advantages - allows access to what people think and feel
disadvantages - people may not supply truthful answers and may lie in a socially desirable way
- people sometimes do not know what they think or feel so their answer lacks validity
- sample may lack representativeness meaning that the data that has been collected cannot be generalised
