PYSCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS

Questionnaires consist of a set of questions usually in a highly structured written form.

Questionnaires can contain both open questions and closed questions and participants record their own answers.

I are a type of spoken questionnaire where the interviewer records the responses. Interviews can be structured whereby there is a predetermined set of questions (which limits respondants reply) or unstructured whereby no questions are decided in advance (which is hard to carry out). Most interviewers use semi-structured where they ask some pre-determined questions and leave space for questions that the conversation may lead them too.

Stengths: able to study large samples of people fairly easy and quickly. They are able to examine a large number of variables and can ask people to reveal behaviour and feelings which have been experienced in real situations.

Weaknesses:  social desirability bias (can be a big problem with self report measures) as participants often answer in a way to portray themselves in a good light. Questions are not always clear so the respondant might not fully understand the question being asked. Response rate to questionnaires is usuall very low. Leading questions may be involved.