Designing and conducting questionnaires and interviews, considering researcher effects.
Primary and secondary data.
Unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews, open, closed (including ranked scale) questions.
Primary data, in psychology, refers to data that has been generated by the researcher themselves. For example, they may have conducted a questionnaire or a series of interviews, or they might have carried out an observation or experiment. This is in contrast with secondary data which is data that already exists (such as existing research or official statistics).
Secondary data is information that someone else has collected e.g. the work of other psychologists that has been published in journals or government statistics. They are sometimes used by other researchers, as they are often cheaper and more convenient than gathering one’s own primary data.
Self-report techniques describe methods of gathering data where participants provide information about themselves without interference from the experimenter.
Such techniques can include questionnaires, interviews, or even diaries, and ultimately will require giving responses to pre-set questions.
Participants can be asked about their feelings and cognitions (i.e. thoughts), which can be more useful than simply observing behaviour alone.
Scenarios can be asked about hypothetically without having to physically set them up and observe participants’ behaviour.
Gathering information about thoughts or feelings is only useful if participants are willing to disclose them to the experimenter.
Participants may try to give the ‘correct’ responses they think researchers are looking for (or deliberately do the opposite), or try to come across in most socially acceptable way (i.e. social desirability bias), which can lead to giving untruthful responses.
Questionnaires are a type of ‘self-report’ technique, where participants fill in the answers for themselves, providing information on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Question format can be:
Closed questions - where there is a pre-determined set of answers to choose from
e.g. ‘Do you exercise?’ may have set responses of ‘yes/no’, or ‘I exercise 0/1/2/3+ times a week’)
Open questions - where there is no restriction on how participants make their response
e.g. ‘How does the sight of seeing dogs in a public place without a lead make you feel?’
Questionnaires are a relatively cheap and quick way to gather a large amount of data.
Since questionnaires can be completed privately (and often anonymously), responses may be more likely to be honest. However, not having an experimenter to supervise its completion could present a problem.
Social desirability issues may arise, where participants give incorrect responses to try to put themselves in a socially acceptable light.
Distributing questionnaires en masse (e.g. via post or the internet) means that any data collected relies on responses to be returned; response rates are often poor, plus it may be that only a certain type of person returns questionnaires, so generalising the sample of results to a large population can be unconvincing.
Questionnaires may be flawed if some questions are leading (i.e. they suggest a desired response in the way they are worded).
If any questions are misunderstood, participants completing questionnaires privately cannot get clarification on the meaning/responding accurately from an experimenter, so may complete them incorrectly.
Interviews are self-report techniques that involve an experimenter asking participants questions (generally on a one-to-one basis) and recording their responses.
There are three main types of interview:
Structured - where the interviewer has a set list of questions to lead the conversation, a framework which will be rigidly stuck to.
Semi-Structured - - where the interviewer has a set list of questions to lead the conversation, but can ask follow-up question of their own for expansion and elaboration.
Unstructured - where the interviewer may have a list of topics or questions, but has extra flexibility to lead the conversation further, should participant responses lead to deeper/more detailed discussion.
Unstructured interviews provide potential to gather rich and detailed information from each participant – more so than questionnaires.
The conversational nature of unstructured interviews is best suited to discussing complex or sensitive issues, as participants are more likely to relax and give better responses as the dialogue flows.
Interviews can be used as part of a pilot study to gather information prior to conducting proposed research.
There is a lot of time and expense involved when training interviewers, to conduct unstructured interviewers in particular.
Social desirability bias can be a problem with self-report techniques, i.e. participants give responses that are thought to be the most socially acceptable, rather than necessarily truthful.
Interview data can be a time-consuming task to analyse and interpret when it is so detailed (and in a qualitative [written] format).
Interviews require participants to have basic competencies for interviews to be successful (e.g. adequate communication skills, memory, honesty) which could potentially limit the sample’s size and representativeness of the population if not met.
Run a small scale practice study to ensure people understand the questions. People will also be able to give detailed honest feedback on the questionnaire design.
It is important to conduct a questionnaire pilot study for the following reasons:
Check that respondents understand the terminology used in the questionnaire.
Check that emotive questions have not been used as they make people defensive and could invalidate their answers.
Check that leading questions have not been used as they could bias the respondent's answer.
Ensure the questionnaire can be completed in an appropriate time frame (i.e., it's not too long).
Questions should progress logically from the least sensitive to the most sensitive, from the factual and behavioral to the cognitive, and from the more general to the more specific.
The researcher should ensure that the answer to a question is not influenced by previous questions.
There should be a minimum of technical jargon. Questions should be simple, to the point and easy to understand.
The language of a questionnaire should be appropriate to the vocabulary of the group of people being studied. Use statements which are interpreted in the same way by members of different subpopulations of the population of interest.
For example, the researcher must change the language of questions to match the social background of respondents' age / educational level / social class / ethnicity etc.
The researcher must ensure that the information provided by the respondent is kept confidential, e.g., name, address, etc.
This means questionnaires are good for researching sensitive topics as respondents will be more honest when they cannot be identified.
Keeping the questionnaire confidential should also reduce the likelihood of any psychological harm, such as embarrassment.
Participants must provide informed consent prior to completing the questionnaire, and must be aware that they have the right to withdraw their information at any time during the survey/ study.
State one open question that could be asked in your questionnaire. (1) June 2016
State one closed question that could be asked in your questionnaire. (1) June 2016
State one open question that Rendi could ask in her interviews about obedience. (1) October 2017
State one closed question that Rendi could use in her questionnaire about obedience. (1) October 2017
Define what is meant by ‘secondary data’. (1) January 2018
Suggest one reason why a structured interview may increase the reliability of Helen’s research into crowd behaviour in the park. (1) January 2018
Define what is meant by ‘quantitative data’. (1) June 2018
Name the type of data Marco used to begin his research. (1) January 2019
Define what is meant by ‘primary data’. (1) January 2020
Explain one weakness of Rendi using quantitative data about obedience. (2) October 2017
Give two differences between primary and secondary data. (2)
Explain one strength of using questionnaires in your practical. (2) June 2016
Give two reasons why Kaleb used standardised questions in his study. (2) January 2017
Explain how Rendi could use secondary data to improve the reliability of her research into obedience. (2) October 2017
Describe how the researchers could gather qualitative data about why the students attended the meeting. (3) January 2020
Explain one strength and one weakness of using secondary data in psychological research. (4) January 2018
Explain one strength and one weakness of gathering qualitative data in Michelle’s research. (4) June 2018