self-report

Question 1

types of questions

Answer 1

• open questions
• closed questions

Question 2

open questions

Answer 2

• ask a participant to respond to a set of question but leave a blank underneath the question so participants can answer in whatever style they choose
• often used to assess a persons emotions or the reasons why they choose to do certain things
• produce qualitatve data

Question 3

closed questions

Answer 3

• give the answers to the participant and they have to choose the most appropriate answer for them
• quantitative data

Question 4

advantages of closed questions

Answer 4

• quick and easy for participants to answer
• closed questions are more likely to be sturctured in a certain order, therefore high in internal reliability
• due to time efficiency, large samples can be collected increasing generalisability
• quantitative data easy to analyse

Question 5

weakness of closed questions

Answer 5

• lack of detail, participants cant express opinions fully as there are very limited choices to answer which lacks validity
• risks of response bias e.g. saying yes to everything
• the score for all participants on each question is only nominal data so only the mode can be calculated
• lacks reason for why they selected the option they choce

Question 6

strengths of open question

Answer 6

• produce qualitative data, giving participants an opportunity to fully express their opinions, increasing validity.
• All info is analysed so information is not lost by averaging answers – increasing validity.

Question 7

weakness of open questions

Answer 7

• time consuming to analyse as themes need to be identified
• interpretation of data is subjective, leading to bias which can lead to issues of validity.
• the inconsistency of interpreting data can lead to low inter-rater reliability
• findings are based on individuals so may lack generalisability

Question 8

rating scale questions

Answer 8

• asks the the individual a question, and then they must highlight on a numerical scale where they feel best reflects their view

e.g. On a scale of 1-10 How much do you love Chocolate? (1 being low, 10 being high)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Question 9

strengths of scale questions

Answer 9

• less restrictive, as participants have a wider scale of options to choose from, this could improve validity.
• easy to analyse due to numerical data.
• easily repeated

Question 10

weakness of rating scale questions

Answer 10

• can be tempting to tick randomly, tendency for participants to choose the middle scale so they dont look too extreme
• can be subjective therefore reliability and consistency may be an issue
• doesnt give you an idea on why participants have chosen that option

Question 11

likert scales

Answer 11

participants indicate on a scale how much you agree with a statement. It is also known as a verbal rating scale.

e.g. “Psychology is the most important subject ever”. Circle one answer.

Strongly agree
Agree
Unsure
Disagree
Strongly Disagree

Question 12

semantic differentials

Answer 12

• a question or statement is given and participants have to respond on a numerical scale as to how much they agree with it, however it uses the polar opposite terms

Question 13

types of interviews

Answer 13

• structured interview
• semi structured interview
• unstructured interview

Question 14

structured interviews

Answer 14

• interviewer asks the same questions to each participants in the same order
• predetermined questions
• closed questions are often used with the interviewee picking the answer that is closest to their own view

Question 15

strength of structured interviews

Answer 15

• high reliability as all participants have the same experience making it standardised and replicable
• easy to analyse and compare results due to quantitative data

Question 16

weakness of structured interviews

Answer 16

• restrictive which makes it lack validity
• may miss out useful information due to to it being restrictive

Question 17

semi structured interviews

Answer 17

• Some questions are pre-planned before the interview and then others are created and developed during the interview in response to answers given by the interviewee

Question 18

strengths of semi-structured interviews

Answer 18

• more trustworthy for participants as more conversational which makes it higher in ecological validity as a rapport is created making the interviewee more comfortable
• quantitative data is produced meaning that it is easier to analyse and compare results
• can ask additional questions to clarify or add information so more data is produced

Question 19

weakness of semi-structured interview

Answer 19

• reliability may not be high as participants may have varying experience
• harder to compare between participants

Question 20

unstructured interviews

Answer 20

• the researcher has topics to discuss but these dont have to be in the same order for each, but no questions are decided in advance
• the inteview is more like a conversation with further questions being developed in response to the interviewees answers
• they tend to be open questions but can be a mixture of open and closed.

Question 21

strengths of unstructured interviews

Answer 21

• high ecological validity as there is a high rapport between the participant and researcher so the participants feel more comfortable so answers will be more honest
• lots of detailed qualitative data collected that otherwise might be missed

Question 22

weakness of unstructured interviews

Answer 22

• low reliability as the answers are subjective so cannot be repeated and get the same answers and responses
• broad range of topics covered to hard to summarise and analyse
• time consuming

Question 23

questionnaire

Answer 23

a series of questions in a written form

Question 24

strengths of a questionnaire

Answer 24

• easier to administer and can be emailed to particiants, making it time and cost efficient
• participants maybe more truthful than in an interview if answers are personal as they are writing them fown without immediate judgement of someone
• data is easy to analyse if quantitative

Question 25

weakness of questionnaire

Answer 25

- response bias as there may be a tendency to answer the same answer e.g. saying no or always ticking the same box for every question - limited because unlike unstructured interviews there is less flexibility. ig someone has written an answer that you dont understand, it can lead to the research being misinterpreted

Question 26

interview

Answer 26

a series of questions are given verbally, face-to-face between an interviewer and an interviewee

Question 27

problem for the validity of a questionnaire and interview

Answer 27

1. question/interview contains **leading questions** 2. answers may be **socially desirable** 3. questionnaires or unstructured interviews may contain **forced-choice question** 4. respondents may have **demand characteristics** 5. respondents lapse into a **standard response set**, giving the same answers to all questions 6. respondents are asked to recod their name on the questionnaire 7. data from open questions requires alot of analysis which**risks observer bias**

Question 28

how would leading questions reduce validity and how to overcome it

Answer 28

- Why: it would mean that participants arent expressing their genuine views, instead they are expressing the view they feel led towards - How: Avoid asking questions of this kind by making them deliberately non-leading

Question 29

how does socially desirable answers reduce validity and how to overcome

Answer 29

- Why: participants arent expressing their genuine views, instead they are expressing the view that they think will make them look the best - How: guarantee the participants anonymity by not asking for their names

Question 30

how does forced-choice questions reduce validity and how to overcome it

Answer 30

- Why: partipants are not expressing their genuine views. what they are doing is expressing the view which is closest to their genuine view although it may not be very close at all - How: Have an 'Other: please specify...' option at the end

Question 31

how do demand characteristics reduce validity and how to overcome it

Answer 31

- Why: participants arent expressing their genuine views, instead they are expressing the view that they think the researcher is looking for. - How: Have 'smokescreen/filler' questions to disguise the aim of the study

Question 32

how does standard response set reduce validity and how to overcome it

Answer 32

- Why: participants arent expressing their genuine views, instead they are just giving answers without really thinking about what they are doing - How: reverse some of the statments so that 'strongly agree' doesnt always express a positive attitude towards the attitude object

Question 33

how does asking for names reduce validity and how to overcome it

Answer 33

- Why: participants arent expressing their genuine views as they will be aware that their responses can be traced back to them, they might 'censor' some of their extreme views - How: dont ask respondents to record their name on the questionnaire

Question 34

how does researcher bias reduce validity and how to overcome this

Answer 34

- Why: the way that data is analysed may not reflect partcipants genuine views instead it may reflect what the researcher had been hoping the participants would say - How: get an independent researcher who is blind to the aim of the studt to analyse the data