Self-reports
A self-report is asking participants themselves to report about their own thoughts and behaviour. Self-reports can be used in a variety of different ways:
Psychometric tests are questionnaires used to evaluate personality types or traits, attitudes and mental agility such as IQ or creative thinking. They are highly structured and are viewed as accurately constructed measurement instruments which are subject to rigorous testing for reliability and validity.
These can take the form of:
Two main types of self-report method are:
Evaluation points: Strengths of self-reports in general
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of self-reports in general
Structured and Unstructured
Questionnaires are structured and have pre-set questions. Interviews can be
Types of Interviews
Evaluation points: Strengths of interviews in general
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of interviews in general
Types of questions
Evaluation points: Strengths of open questions
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of open questions
Evaluation points: Strengths of closed questions
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of open questions
Assessing the Reliability of self-reports:
Improving the Validity of Self-reports
A self-report is asking participants themselves to report about their own thoughts and behaviour. Self-reports can be used in a variety of different ways:
- Questionnaires
- Diary entries
- Interviews
- Psychometric tests.
Psychometric tests are questionnaires used to evaluate personality types or traits, attitudes and mental agility such as IQ or creative thinking. They are highly structured and are viewed as accurately constructed measurement instruments which are subject to rigorous testing for reliability and validity.
These can take the form of:
- personality tests
- aptitude tests and
- cognitive ability tests.
Two main types of self-report method are:
- Questionnaire: A series of questions in a written form.
- Interview: A series of questions are given verbally, face-to-face between an interviewer and an interviewee.
Evaluation points: Strengths of self-reports in general
- Can generate quantitative and qualitative data
- Structured interviews and questionnaires can be easily replicate to increase reliability
- Structured interviews and questionnaires can be easily assessed for reliability and improved by removing or changing inconsistent items.
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of self-reports in general
- Participants can be affected by biases such as social desirability and leading questions.
- Only some people are willing to fill out questionnaires or participate in interviews so may not be representative of the population.
Structured and Unstructured
Questionnaires are structured and have pre-set questions. Interviews can be
- Structured.
- Or semi-structured
- Or unstructured
Types of Interviews
- Structured - questions are decided in advance and asked in the same order for each interviewee;
- Semi-structured - contains mostly prepared questions which can be boosted with additional questions.
- Unstructured - more like a conversation and the interviewer only keeps the discussion going.
Evaluation points: Strengths of interviews in general
- Structured interviews are easier to analyse if quantitative data is gathered.
- Semi-structured and unstructured interviews enable the researcher to gain detailed information.
- The interviewer can respond more flexibly to gain useful, detailed information.
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of interviews in general
- Structured interviews are limited by fixed questions, so may lack construct validity.
- Researcher bias can occur. The expectations of the interviewer may alter the way the respondent answers questions.
Types of questions
- Closed questions – answers are listed and respondents choose from this list
E.g. How often do you drink alcohol?
Never □ Rarely □ every month □ every week □ every day □ - Open questions – An open ended question allows the respondent to write their ideas.
E.g. What do think about under age drinking? - Likert Scale – a type of closed question where the respondent marks their view on a scale.
- E.g. People should not drink alcohol until 18.
Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree - Semantic Differential questions– a type of closed question where the respondent rates their view between 2 opposing descriptive words (bipolar adjectives).
E.g. Put a mark on this line to show how you are currently feeling:
Evaluation points: Strengths of open questions
- Generate qualitative data which can show HOW and WHY behaviours occur, so has greater construct validity.
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of open questions
- Qualitative data is time consuming to analyse
- And can be subjective, due to researcher bias, which can lead to low inter-rater reliability.
Evaluation points: Strengths of closed questions
- Quick and easy to answer, so participants are more likely to do the self-report.
- So larger samples are more likely to occur, increasing generalisability.
- Easier to analyse
Evaluation points: Weaknesses of open questions
- Generates quantitative detail, which shows WHAT behaviours occur, but not HOW or WHY, so has lesser construct validity.
- There may be response biases (few people select ‘strongly agree’ on Likert scales), which lowers the construct validity.
Assessing the Reliability of self-reports:
- Test retest (external reliability): testing the same person with the same self-reports over a period of time. If the results are consistent (80% or more the same) over time then the self-report has test-retest reliability.
- Split half (internal reliability): splitting the test into two parts and seeing how consistent (80% or more the same) they are. If both halves have consistency, then it has split half reliability.
Improving the Validity of Self-reports
- Removing leading / unclear / socially desirable questions
- Adding open questions to provide qualitative data
- Ensuring answers will be anonymous and confidential
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