Self-Report Techniques

Question 1

What is a self-report technique?

Answer 1

Any method where a person is asked to state or explain their opinions, feelings, or experiences on a given topic.

Question 2

What are two types of self-report techniques?

Answer 2

• Questionnaires

- Interviews

Question 3

What is a questionnaire?

Answer 3

A set of written questions on a topic to asses a participant’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

Question 4

What are two key factors of questionnaires?

Answer 4

They are always pre-determined and structured.

Question 5

What two types of questions can questionnaires include?

Answer 5

• Open questions

- Closed questions

Question 6

What are closed questions?

Answer 6

A closed question offers a fixed number of responses.

Question 7

What are some examples of the structure of closed questions?

Answer 7

• “yes or no” responses

- questions with a fixed scale

Question 8

What is a response set bias?

Answer 8

This is where participants always respond in a similar way at the same/ similar end of the rating scale.

Question 9

Why may some participants produce a response set bias?

Answer 9

They might be trying to complete the questionnaire too quickly and/or fails to read the questions properly.

Question 10

Why is response set bias a problem?

Answer 10

Produces invalid results that are not an accurate representation of the participants views.

Question 11

What kind of data do closed questions produce?

Answer 11

Quantitative.

Question 12

What are open questions?

Answer 12

These do not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way they wish.

Question 13

Do closed or open questions produce more detailed responses?

Answer 13

Open.

Question 14

What is an example of an open question?

Answer 14

How do you feel when stressed?

Question 15

What kind of data do open questions collect?

Answer 15

Qualitative data.

Question 16

What does ‘ambiguous’ mean?

Answer 16

When something (the question) is unclear.

Question 17

What can ambiguous questioned lead to?

Answer 17

Invalid responses.

Question 18

How can you check if questioned are ambiguous or not?

Answer 18

Run a pilot study.

Question 19

What is social desirability bias?

Answer 19

This is where some people may not answer honestly about sensitive issues in attempt to put themselves in a more positive and desirable light.

Question 20

Why is social desirability bias a problem?

Answer 20

Lowers internal validity of the study.

Question 21

How can a researchers decrease the chances of social desirability bias affecting their results?

Answer 21

Guarantee confidentiality to the respondents.

Question 22

What is the name of the problem where the participant may work out the aim of the questionnaire?

Answer 22

Demand characteristics.

Question 23

How can a researcher deal with demand characteristics?

Answer 23

By using “filler questions” that are about different topics so it makes their aim less clear.