Self-report techinques

• techinques

  • questionnaires
  • interviews
• Open questions

  • Open questions allow participants to elaborate on their answers producing qualitative data
• Closed questions

  • Force participants to chose an option
  • Easy to analyse as generates quantitative data
• Linet scaling

  • Type of question generates quantitative data assessing strength of an opinion
• Strengths of questionnaires

  • Large quantity of data without a psychologist
  • Able to gain both qualitiative and quantitative data
• Weaknesses of questionnaires

  • Prone to social desirability bias
  • Unrepresentative of population
• Interviews

  • Can be structured or unstructured
• Structured interview

  • Pre-determind questions
• Unstructured

  • Some structured questions but new questions develop based off answers (clinical interview)
• Semi-structured interviews

  • No specific set
• Advantages of interviews

  • Structured interviews are easy to replicate as standarised
  • Standardised increases internal validity
  • Easy to compare
  • Semi-structured more detailed
• Disadvantages of interviews

  • Compatibility may be an issue as if interviewer behaves differently (researcher bias)
  • Could have investigator bias as expectations of interview may influence answers
  • Semi-structured interviews require more skills and lack objectivity
  • Expensive
• Contingent questions

  • questions depend on answer to preceding question