Self Reports

Question 1

What is an interview?

Answer 1

A directed conversation with intent for the interviewer to gain information from a client

Question 2

What is a clinical interview?

Answer 2

A primary assessment completed between a psychologist and a client

Question 3

What is a questionnaire?

Answer 3

A set of questions or prompts to gain information from a participant about a certain criteria

Question 4

What is a structured interview?

Answer 4

Where an interviewer asks a set of prepared closed or open ended questions exactly as worded

Question 5

What is an unstructured interview?

Answer 5

Where an interviewer doesn’t use any prepared questions and lets the interview flow as a natural conversation

Question 6

What are open questions?

Answer 6

Questions that do not have fixed responses, so allows for depth and detail within answers

Question 7

What are closed questions?

Answer 7

Questions that limit the participant to a pre-determined set of responses (e.g yes or no)

Question 8

What is interviewer bias?

Answer 8

Where the expectations of an interviewer interferes with the judgement of the interviewee

Question 9

What is a ranked scale?

Answer 9

A scale that asks participants to order items based on a specific criteria

Question 10

What is a rating scale?

Answer 10

A scale that asks participants to rate on a number scale based on a specific criteria

Question 11

What is social desirability?

Answer 11

The tendency for people to present themselves in a generally favourable fashion

Question 12

What are the strengths of using interviews?

Answer 12

• Open questions lead to detailed information
• Closed questions allow for comparisons to be drawn
• Structured interviews reduce interviewer bias
• Good at building rapport

Question 13

What are the limitations of interviews?

Answer 13

• Open questions can be prone to researcher bias
• Closed questions lead to limited understanding
• Unstructured interviews carry low ecological validity
• May suffer from social desirability

Question 14

What are the strengths of questionnaires?

Answer 14

• Open ended questions provide rich and detailed data
• Closed questions are less subject to bias
• Used to question large samples of people quickly
• Reduces investigator effects
• No previous training required

Question 15

What are the weaknesses of using questionnaires?

Answer 15

• Open ended questions may be prone to investigator bias
• Closed questions reduce ecological validity
• Social desirability effects
• Only those who can read or write can take part

Question 16

What are important points for questionnaire creation?

Answer 16

• Ensure that instructions are easy and simple to follow
• Keep amount of information asked for to a minimum
• Ethical considerations
• Beware of creating leading questions that may bias your participants’ answers