Types of Self Report
- Questionaires
- Interviews
What is Self Report?
Participants tell you how they are feeling or what they are thinking
What are closed questions?
- Tick a box questions
- Gives quantitive data
Strengths of Closed Questions…
Easy to analyse
Easier for respondents to answer
Weaknesses of Closed Questions…
Doesn’t give much depth or explanation why they’ve chosen that
What are Open Questions?
Allows participants to write an answer to the question
Strengths of Open Questions…
-Gives detail and an explanation why they’ve chosen that answer
Weaknesses of Open Questions….
- Harder to compare as they all write different things
- Respondents might not want to answer it as it requires effort
What is a Likert Scale…
Another data collection used in questionnaires with a 1-5 scale which participants rate their behaviour or feelings
Strengths of a Likert Scale…
-Greater level of understanding and feelings (make results more reliable)
Weaknesses of a Likert Scale…
- Subjective (the numbers may mean something different things to different people)
- Socially desirability Bias (portray themselves positively)
What is Response Bias
- People answer incorrectly or falsely to questions
- E.G. picking the same option all the way down
How to deal with Response Bias …
Can reverse the questions to see who’s response bias(improves reliability)
What is the Split half method?
Ask similar questions to see if participants answer similarly to before- check reliability
What are semantic differentials?
- Asks people to place themselves on a line between two extremes
- often used to measure attitudes
- the extremes can be reversed to catch people out who aren’t reading the questions properly
What are the types of interviews…
- Face to face
- Over the telephone
- Structured (plan what to ask)
- Unstructured (don’t plan what to ask)
- Semi-structured (plan what to ask then may ask other things)
What are leading questions ?
Forcing respondents to give particular reply- researchers not usually aware of this (decrease validity- not their true feelings)
Strengths of Self Report…
- Allow participants to give views rather than inferring from observation
- Can study large samples easily and quickly
- Examine large number of variables
- Ask people to reveal behaviour and feelings experienced in real life situations (ecological validity)
Weaknesses of Self Report…
- Social Desirability Bias
- Questions might not be clear (validity issues)
- Response rates can be low
- Leading questions
- Quantitive data doesn’t give a lot of information about the reasons
- Qualitative data hard to analyse
- Reliability and validity issues.
How to Improve reliability …
- Make sure questions aren’t ambitious and clarify exactly what they’re saying
- In interviews, train interviewers to ensure they ask things in the same way
How to Improve validity…
- Avoid leading questions
- Concurrent validity- doing two things that measure the same thing to compare the results - if they’re similar its measured
- Open questions could be added to allow respondents to expand on their answers
- Confidentiality allows them to be more truthful
Strengths of Structured Interviews…
- Standardised format- All participants are asked the same questions
- Interviewer is present to avoid misinterpretation of the question
Weaknesses of Structured Interviews…
- Interviewer bias (may alter tone of voice) decrease validity
- Respondents may be Social desirability bias in-front of the interviewer
- Lack flexibility, can’t expand on their response
Strengths of Unstructured Interviews…
-More flexible as questions can be adapted and changed depending on the respondents’ answers.
