SELF REPORT METHODS - INTERVIEWS AND QUESTIONAIRES

Questionaires

  • A set of questions designed to collect information from a large number of people
  • They can be administered in person, by post, online, over the phone, or to a group of participant simultaneously
  • Can collect lots of data easily
  • Can access people's thoughts

Types of questions

  • Closed questions - there are a set number of responses which the participant selects from (quantitative)
  • Semantic differentials - the participant makes a mark on a line to express the level of agreement with a particular view (quantative)
  • Open questions - the participant can give any answer they wish (qualitative data)
  • Likert scales - there are a number of responses to a question which often demonstrate a degree of agreement (qualitative)

Designing questions

  • Use of filler questions - these are irrelevant questions that are used to distract the respondent form the main purpose of the study (reduce demand characteristics)
  • Pilot studies - test on a small group first and then refine the questionaire
  • Clarity of question - e.g. No double negatives (are you against banning capital punishment?)

Structured interviews

Semi-Structured interviews

  • Contains mostly prepared questions that can be supplemented with additional questions
  • The interviewer can deviate from the original questions + therefore this type of interview typically produces rish qualitative data
  • Predetermined set of questions asked in a fixed order

Unstructured interviews

  • Like a conversation, no set questions - a general topic will be discussed - interviewee can elaborate on answers
  • Use of pre-determined questions provides uniformity
  • Provides valuable information from context of participants' experiences
  • Can be time consuming to collect + analyse data
  • Requires some level of training or practice in order to prevent interviewer suggesting answers
  • Provides potential to gather rich and detailed information from each participant – more so than questionnaires - more reasons for their choices
  • You can reword the questions to help children understand the question especially because they are young
  • There is a lot of time and expense involved when training interviewers, to conduct unstructured interviewers in particular
  • Structured interviews are easy to replicate as a fixed set of closed questions are used, which are easy to quantify – this means it is easy to test for reliability
  • The answers from structured interviews lack detail as only closed questions are asked, which generates quantitative data. This means a researcher won’t know why a person behaves in a certain way
  • Questionaires are relatively cheap + quick way to gather a large amount of data
  • Questionaires can be completed privately + often anonymously, responses may be more likely to be honest
  • However, not having an experimenter to supervise its completion could present a problem
  • Social desirability issues may arise, where participants give incorrect responses to try to put themselves in a socially acceptable light
  • If any questions are misunderstood, participants completing questionnaires privately cannot get clarification on the meaning/responding accurately from an experimenter, so many complete them incorrectly