Self-reporting data Flashcards
What are self-reports?
They get information directly from the participants about their behaviour and thoughts.
The two types of self-reports are: Interviews and Questionnaires/Surveys.
What is an unstructured interview?
They put the interviewee at ease and produce natural responses. The big advantage is that the interviewer can stop and pursue an interesting line of conversation or go back over questions that weren’t answered clearly.
What are structured interviews?
They have pre-determined questions. Structured interviews always feature the same questions in the same order but they are stilted and unnatural. The main advantage is that lots of participants can be interviewed this way and their responses easily compared.
What are semi-structured interviews?
They contain pre-determined questions but also feature informal chat. They aim to get “the best of both worlds” but they are difficult to do: the interviewer has to be well-trained or quite experienced.
What are questionnaires?
Questionnaires involve reading the questions followed by a written response - although the writing might be no more than ticking boxes.
The two types of questions are: Open questions and Closed questions
What are open questions?
They allow the respondent to answer in any way they like. The best open questions encourage longer answers and begin with words like “How” and “Why” - questions beginning with “What” and “When” tend to produce limited answers.
What are closed questions?
They only allow an answer from a list of responses. The simplest type of closed question is a “Yes/No” question. More complicated closed questions can be multiple-choice questions.
What are some different types of closed questions?
Multiple choice - produces nominal level data
Ranked scale - produces interval/ratio level data
Likert scale - produces nominal or interval/ratio data
What are researcher effects?
Researcher effects are influences that spoil the outcome of the self-report process. They do this because the respondent is actually reacting to some characteristic of the researcher (their appearance, body language or tone) rather than the question itself.
What is a solution to researcher effects?
A solution is the double-blind technique where the person asking the questions doesn’t know the true purpose of the research and can’t help the respondents out.
What are some strengths of self-reports?
Valid as they allow respondents to describe their own experience instead of the researcher interpreting.
Able to study large samples of people easily and quickly.
Able to examine large number of variables and ask people to reveal behaviour and feelings which have been experienced in real life.
Pilot study can test the effectiveness of questions on a smaller sample beforehand.
What are some weaknesses of self-reports?
Respondents may wish to show themselves as socially desirable and therefore not answer truthfully.
Mass questionnaires can cause a low respondent rate.
Not sure if the respondent understands the questions.
Questions can sometimes be leading, causing the respondent to give a certain reply.
What is an alternate hypothesis?
Predicts what the researchers expect will happen.
What is the null hypothesis?
Predicts that the research will not find what is being looked for.
What is a directional hypothesis?
Predicts the direction of the results, such as something increasing or decreasing.
