Self-reports

Psychology AS · Research methodology. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

In a self-report, participants give information about themselves by answering questions. There are two forms. A questionnaire is a written set of questions, completed on paper or online. An interview is a conversation in which the researcher asks the questions, face to face or by telephone.

Questions can be closed, with fixed choices that give numbers, or open, where people answer in their own words and give detail. Interviews differ in how fixed the questions are: structured, semi-structured or unstructured.

Self-reports are the only direct way to find out what people think and feel. Their weakness is that the answers may not be true.

Rules to remember

Closed questions: fixed answers (yes/no, rating scales). Quantitative data, easy to analyse and compare, but little detail.
Open questions: free answers. Qualitative data, rich in detail, but slow to analyse and open to the researcher's interpretation.
Structured interview: the same fixed questions in the same order for everyone. Reliable and easy to replicate, but not flexible.
Unstructured interview: a topic but no fixed questions. Detailed and flexible, but hard to compare and to replicate.
Semi-structured interview: some fixed questions plus follow-up questions.
Social desirability bias: answering in a way that makes you look good instead of telling the truth.
Questionnaires reach many people quickly and cheaply, and being anonymous can make answers more honest; interviews allow questions to be explained.

Common mistake

Do not say that questionnaires only give quantitative data. The type of data depends on the question format: closed questions give quantitative data and open questions give qualitative data, in questionnaires and in interviews.

Worked example

A psychologist wants data from 500 office workers on how many hours they sleep, and wants to compare departments quickly. Which self-report technique and question format should she use?

500 people is too many to interview in a reasonable time, so a questionnaire is better, and an online one is the quickest to send out.
She needs numbers that can be compared, so closed questions are suitable, for example a choice of hour bands.
Closed answers can be counted and turned into percentages or averages for each department.
A limit: she will not learn why people sleep as they do, and some may not report honestly.

Answer: An online questionnaire with closed questions, which gives quantitative data from a large sample quickly.

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