Self-report techniques

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Questionnaires - a set of written questions used to asses a persons thoughts or experiences.

These use a set of pre-set written questions and can be used in experiments to asses the dependent variable

open and closed questions

Open questions - don't have fixed answers allowing participants to answer how they want. they are qualitative so are rich in depth but are harder to analyse.

Closed questions- these have a fixed number of responses (eg. yes or no) these produce numerical data by limiting the answers. this is quantitative data which is easy to analyse but can lack depth.

Strengths

Questionnaires are cost effective

Large amounts of data can be gathered quickly

Data they produce are often easily analysed and graphically shown

Limitations

Not all responses are truthful because of demand characteristics and a social desirability bias

People may not read questions correctly and fill them out wrong

People have an aquiescence bias which means they have a tendency to agree to things regardless of the question

Interviews - A live encounter where one person asks questions to asses the others thoughts and or experiences.

Structured interviews

An interview where there are preset questions to be asked in a fixed order

Unstructured interviews

Like a conversation here are no set questions. there is a general aim to be discussed but its free flowing and the interviewer encourages them to expand on points.

semi-structured interview

Where there are set questions however the interviewer is able to ask follow up questions and have the interviewee expand on their answers.

Strengths

Structured interviews are easy to replicate

There's more flexibility in an unstructured interview

Limitations

In structured interviews it's hard to deviate from the topic this is can be frustrating for some.

Analysis of an unstructured interview isn't straight forward.

Some people could lie