Self-reports/Questionnaires Flashcards
What is a self-report?
Any method which involves asking a participant about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs etc.
Give 2 examples of a self-report.
- Questionnaires
- Interviews
What are self-reports often used as a way of gaining participants responses within?
- Observational studies
- Experiments
What are questionnaires?
A type of self-report method which consists of a set of questions, usually in a highly-structured written form
What two types of question might an interview or questionnaire contain?
- Open questions
- Closed questions
How are answers recorded in a questionnaire?
Participants record their own answers
What are interviews?
A type of spoken questionnaire where the interviewer records their responses.
Explain how interviews can be either structured or unstructured.
- Structured – there may be predetermined set of questions
- Unstructured – no questions are decided in advance; spontaneous
What are closed questions, as can be found in interviews or questionnaires?
Questions which provide a limited choice
What is a question asking a participant’s age or their favourite type of cheese an example of?
Closed questions
What type of data do closed questions provide?
Quantitative
What do closed questions not allow the participant to do/
Open up and give more in-depth answers
What are open questions, as can be found in interviews or questionnaires?
Questions which invite the respondent to provide their own answers as much as they wish
What type of data do open questions provide?
Qualitative data
Give a strength of closed questions.
Provides quantitative data which is easy to analyse
Give a weakness of closed questions.
Do not allow the participant to give in-depth responses.
Give a strength of open questions.
Produces more in-depth responses relating to what the participant actually thinks rather than being restricted by categories.
Give a weakness of open questions.
Provides qualitative data which is harder to analyse
What is the most common example of a rating scale?
Likert scale
How does a Likert scale work?
A statement is used and the participant decides how strongly they agree or disagree with the statements
Give 2 strengths of Likert type scales.
- They can give us an idea about how strongly a participant feels about something. This gives more detail than a simple yes/no answer.
- Gives quantitative data which is easy to analyse
Give 3 weaknesses of Likert type scales.
- Tendency for people to respond towards the middle of the scale, perhaps to make them look less extreme.
- Participants may answer in the way they think they should
- Data is quantitative so does not provide in-depth responses
What is a fixed-choice question?
Phrased so that the respondent has to make a fixed-choice answer, usually ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Give 2 strengths of a fixed-choice question.
- Easy to measure and quantify due to quantitative data given
- Forces the participant not to choose a middle option
Give a weakness of a fixed-choice question.
Respondents may not feel that their desired response is available and of course the answers are not in-depth.
Give 3 ways in which you could improve the validity of self-report techniques.
- Leading questions could be avoided
- Open questions could be added to allow respondents to expand upon their replies
- Confidentiality could be reinforces to allow respondents to give more truthful responses.
Give 2 strengths of questionnaires (a type of self-report).
- Easy to gather lots of information quickly, so we can test large samples and generate conclusions more readily
- Can generate quantitative data through fixed-choice answer or Likert scales. This makes it easy to make comparisons between participants between participants to identify any differences.
Give 2 weaknesses of questionnaires (a type of self-report).
- Participants can’t elaborate on their answers, so data is not in-depth and could lack validity as participants cannot answer how they want to
- Participants may lie, due to demand characteristics or social desirability bias. Results in a lack of validity as their answers are false and not a true reflection of their feelings.
What is a way of assessing the validity of self-report measures?
To compare the results of the self report with another self report on the same topic - this is called concurrent validity.
What is concurrent validity?
Comparing the results of the self report with another self report on the same topic
What is concurrent validity used to do?
Assess the validity of self-report measures
What is the following an example of?
If an interview is used to investigate the attitudes of 6th form students on smoking, the scores could be compared with a questionnaire of 6th former’s attitudes to smoking.
Concurrent validity (where results are compared from one self report with another on the same topic)
Why might questionnaires be said to often lack validity?
- Participants may lie
- Participants may give an answer that they think is desired (demand characteristics and socially acceptable answers)
Give a way that can improve the reliability of self-report techniques.
- Ambiguous questions could be clarified
- Interviewers can be given training.
How might reliability of self-report measures (such as psychometric tests and questionnaires) be assessed?
Using the split half method
What is the split half method used to do?
Assess the reliability of self-report measures, such as psychometric tests and questionnaires
What is the split half method?
Involves splitting a test in two and having the same participant doing both halves of the test. If the two halves of the test provide similar results this would suggest that the test has internal reliability.
What does it infer if the two halves of a split-half method test provide similar results?
The test has internal reliability.
How might you infer a test has internal reliability using the split-half method?
If the two halves of a split-half method test provide similar results
Give 2 strengths of interviews (a type of self-report).
- Lots of qualitative data, so it’s more in-depth and we can find explanations of behaviour more easily
- Can be tailored to the individual to account for individual differences, allowing us to explore individual differences and increases validity as the questions are right for the person.
Give 2 weaknesses of interviews (a type of self-report).
- Participants may lie, either due to demand characteristics or social desirability bias, so results lack validity as participants’ answers are false and not a true reflection of their feelings
- Can be interpreted subjectively by different psychologists who might think a verbal description means different things. This lacks reliability as conclusions drawn are not consistent with each other.
