Self Report

Question 1

What are the two main self-report techniques?

Answer 1

• Questionarres
• Interviews

Question 2

What are some features of a questionnaire?

Answer 2

• Written methods of gaining data.
• They may be completed by the participant or may act as a a set of questions that a researcher reads to the participant whose answers are recorded.
• Do not necessarily require the presence of the researcher.

Question 3

What are some features of an interviews?

Answer 3

• Involve direct verbal questioning of the subject by the researcher.
• Can vary in how structured they are.

Question 4

What is a person completing a questionnaire known as?

Answer 4

Respondent

Question 5

What is a person being interviewed known as?

Answer 5

Interviewee

Question 6

What is the main strength of self-report?

Answer 6

It can potentially enable the researcher to access people’s thoughts.

Question 7

What is a closed question?

Answer 7

A form of fixed choice questions where the responding is given answers and they must choose the most appropriate answer for them.

Question 8

What is an open question?

Answer 8

Ask a participant to respond to the set question but write on lines underneath in whatever style they choose. These questions are often used to assess a person’s emotions or the reason why they choose to do certain things.

Question 9

What data can closed questions be easily turned into?

Answer 9

Quantitative data

Question 10

What data can open questions be easily turned into?

Answer 10

Qualitative data.

Question 11

What are the advantages of using closed questions?

Answer 11

• Easier and quicker for the participant to respond.
• The data collected is easy to compare and analyse.

Question 12

What are the disadvantages of using closed questions?

Answer 12

• Can force participants to select an option which isn’t true for them.
• Lacks reasons for why they selected the option they did.

Question 13

What are the advantages of using open questions?

Answer 13

• Provides more rich detailed data.
• Doesn’t force participants to give a particular response.

Question 14

What are the disadvantages of using open questions?

Answer 14

• Tine consuming for the participant to comp,eye and for the researcher to analyse the responses collected.
• Responses may not be relevant to what the researcher was interested in.

Question 15

What are rating scales?

Answer 15

• Used if a researcher wants to investigate people’s attitudes towards something.
• Involve the person competing it to make a mark at an appropriate point along a numerical dimension to indicate the direction and strength of their attitude.

Question 16

What are the advantages of using rating scales?

Answer 16

• It gives the researcher an idea of how strongly a participant feels about something (it is more detailed than a simple yes or no answer).
• It still gives quantitative data that can be compared.
• It is easily repeated.

Question 17

What are the disadvantages of using rating scales?

Answer 17

• People might not be consistent in how they interpret the scale (low reliability).
• Participants may just choose the middle option so they don’t look too extreme.
• Rating scales still don’t give you an idea of why participants have chosen that option.

Question 18

What are Likert scales?

Answer 18

• Used to measure attitudes to certain ideas.
• They comprise of a number of statements for each of which participants indicate whether they strongly agree / agree / are undecided / disagree / strongly disagree.
• If possible, statements are selected so that for half the statements ‘agree’ represents a positive attitude towards the attitude object and for the other half it represents a negative attitude. This control got standard response set.

Question 19

What is standard response set?

Answer 19

The tendency to give the same answer in response to all the different statements.

Question 20

How many intervals should you include in a Likert scale?

Answer 20

An odd number (5 or 7) so that participants can choose ‘undecided’ if they truly have no view on the matter.

Question 21

What are semantic differentials?

Answer 21

• Another type if rating scale.
• Make use of polar opposite terms and respondents indicate where they would place their feelings in relation to the topic in question.
• Whilst a series of spaces are required, no numbers are attached.

Question 22

What are the three types of interviews?

Answer 22

• Structured
• Semi-structured
• Unstructured

Question 23

What is a structured interview?

Answer 23

• The interviewer asks the same question to each participant in the same order.
• Closed questions are often used, with the interviewee picking the answer that is closest it their own view.

Question 24

What are the strengths of a structured interview?

Answer 24

• Using the same questions means the interview is standardised and replicable as it can be repeated in the same way for each participant.
• Responses from each participant can be easily compared.

Question 25

What are the weaknesses of a structured interview?

Answer 25

- The interviewer cannot ask any additional questions. This may prevent them from seeking further clarification on a point or not following up on an interesting point.

Question 26

What is a semi-structured interview?

Answer 26

- The interviewer will have a set of pre-prepared questions to ask and is expected to ask all of them. - Other questions will be developed during the interview in response to answers given by the interviewee.

Question 27

What are the strengths of a semi-structured interview?

Answer 27

- Allows the interviewer to use additional questions to seek clarification on a response or to explore and interesting comment made during one of the set questions.

Question 28

What are the weaknesses of a semi-structured interview?

Answer 28

- Although there is some flexibility the interview is still likely to be constrained around the pre-determined questions that are written. - Any additional questions not decided beforehand may vary from participant to participant - making it difficult to compare.

Question 29

What is an unstructured interview?

Answer 29

- The researcher has topics to discuss but these don’t have to be in the same order for each participant. - The interview is more like a conversation, with further questions being developed in response to the interviewee’s answers.

Question 30

What are the strengths of an unstructured interview?

Answer 30

- The interview allows for information to be gathered that might not be revealed from pre-determined questions. - It allows the interviewer to have the freedom to ask on the spot questions which could be relevant.

Question 31

What are the weaknesses of an unstructured interview?

Answer 31

- Difficult to compare responses from the different participants as they may be asked very different questions from each other.

Question 32

What are general advantages of questionarres?

Answer 32

- Can answer them more anonymously so more likely to get responses to embarrassing questions. - Quicker to complete for participants (usually involve more closed questions). - Can collect a large amount of data by sending out to participants. - Participants can take more time to consider responses.

Question 33

What are general disadvantages of questionarres?

Answer 33

- People may not return questionnaires leading to a low response rate. - People may misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently to how you intended (making results invalid).

Question 34

What are general advantages of interviews?

Answer 34

- Can ask follow up questions based on responses given. - Can get more detailed answers than questionnaires provide. - You can build a rapport with interviewees and read their body language.

Question 35

What are general disadvantages of interviews?

Answer 35

- May not get full answers to questions. - Can be more time consuming to complete. - More difficult to analyse if open questions are used.

Question 36

What is an ethics statement?

Answer 36

It informs participants of their rights such as being able to withdraw their data at any time from the research and checks that they give consent to take part.