Self Report Techniques

Question 1

What type of formats can a Questionnaire have?

Answer 1

Closed Questions and Open Questions

Question 2

Questionnaires (Closed Questions)

Answer 2

Pre-determined set of answers to choose from (Yes or no, contains restrictions to openness)

Quantitative

Question 3

Questionaries (Open Questions)

Answer 3

There is no restriction on how participants make their response
(Qualitative)

Question 4

Questionnaires (Strengths)

Answer 4

Relatively cheap and quick way of obtaining large amounts of data

Questionnaires can be private( Done Anonymously), responses are more likely to be honest if the case

Question 5

Questionnaires (Weaknesses)

Answer 5

Social desirability bias, participants give incorrect response to put themselves in a socially acceptable light

Can be flawed if there are leading questions (A desired response in the way it’s worded)

Question 6

Interviews

Answer 6

Involve an experimenter asking participants questions and recording their responses

Question 7

What are the two types of interviews?

Answer 7

Structured and unstructured

Question 8

Structured Interview

Answer 8

Interviewer has a set list of questions to lead the conversation. It contains a framework which is rigid

Question 9

Unstructured interview

Answer 9

Interviewer may have a list of topic or questions but has extra flexibility to lead the conversation further (Not Rigid)

Question 10

Interviews (Strengths)

Answer 10

Unstructured interviews: Gather Rich and detailed information from each participant

Unstructured interviews best suited for discussing complex / sensitive issues, participants are more likely to relax and open up

Question 11

Interviews (Weakness)

Answer 11

Social desirability bias

A lot of time and expenses involved when training interviewers to conduct interview

Time consuming task to analyse and interpret when it is detailed (Qualitative data flaw)

Question 12

So what are self report techniques?

Answer 12

Methods of gathering data where participants provide information about themselves

Question 13

Self report methods (Strengths)

Answer 13

Participants can be asked about their feelings and cognitions without the researcher having to simply observe there behaviour

Question 14

Self report methods (Weakness)

Answer 14

Gathering information about thoughts or feelings is only useful if participants are willing to disclose them to the researcher

Participants may try and give the “correct” responses

Try to come across as socially acceptable (Social desirability bias)