Psychology- Research Methods- Self Report

?

Psychology- Research Methods- Self Report

Advantages

  • Questionnaires- Open Questions- Provide in depth qualitative data, which may reveal new information which researchers were not originally expecting to find.
  • Questionnaires- Closed Questions- Provide quantitative data which can be easily and quickly analysed and compared.
  • Questionnaires are standardised and so are easily replicable and therefore more reliable.
  • Unstructured Interview- Rich in-depth data.
  • Structured interview- More replicable and standardised.
  • Semi-Structured interview- Rich in-depth qualitative data.

Disadvantages

  • Questionnaires- Open Questions- Participants may lie, due to social desirability. Not as easy to compare, due to qualitative data.
  • Questionnaires- Closed Questions- The options given may not suit a participant and so they are forced to lie- with rating scales, participants may be tempted to go for middle answers, rather than extremes. Doesn't give in depth qualitative data.
  • Questionnaires- have low response rate, don't know who is answering the questions so may be low in validity.
  • Unstructured interviews- Hard to replicate because can't predict the questions which may be asked.
  • Structured interviews-Don't leave any room to gain qualitative data.
  • Semi-Structured interview- Has the best of both worlds because it can be partly standardised and it can gather rich in-depth data.

Evaluation

Self reports tend to not be valid because of social-desirablilty bias in which people may lie to make themselves look better, this will effect the validity as we are not sure if we are testing what we are supposed to be testing.Self reports tend to be quite reliable as they are easier to standardise and therefore replicate, except in the case of unstructured interviews.

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar resources:

See all resources »