In one line: Self-report gathers data from people's own accounts of what they think, feel and do. Inner experience cannot be reached any other way.
A fitness tracker can count your steps.
It cannot tell anyone whether the run made you feel better. The steps are measured. The feeling has to be reported, by you.
Two routes to the same information
- A survey (questionnaire): a fixed set of written questions for a large number of people.
- An interview: spoken questions in a conversation, one to one or in a group.
The result is self-reported data. The words survey and questionnaire are used for the same thing.
Both routes are class practicals. Follow one topic through this page: does exercise change how people feel?
Remember: Breadth from a survey. Depth from an interview.
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Key idea: In a survey every respondent meets the same questions in the same form. What those questions look like fixes what kind of data comes back.
A questionnaire may be given with pen and paper, online, or read out face to face. Suppose 200 students are asked about their exercise habits and their mood.
Three types of question
Closed questions
The respondent picks from the answers offered.
"On how many days did you exercise last week? 0 / 1-2 / 3-4 / 5 or more"
The answers are quantitative and simple to compare. Nothing outside the options can be said.
Open questions
The respondent writes a free answer.
"How do you feel in the hour after exercise?"
The answers are qualitative: detailed, and slower to analyse.
Likert scale
The respondent rates a statement on a fixed scale.
"Exercise improves my mood: never, seldom, sometimes, often, always."
An attitude or a frequency becomes a score.
Choose · Write · Rate
Wording matters: "How much better do you feel after exercise?" is a leading question: it takes the answer for granted.
"How do you feel after exercise?" does not.
A pilot with a handful of respondents finds leading or unclear questions before the survey goes out.
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Key idea: The types of interview sit on one line, from the same fixed questions for all to an open conversation.
Four kinds of interview
Structured interview
Every interviewee gets identical questions in an identical order, taken from an interview schedule.
A large sample is manageable and answers line up for comparison. The format can seem artificial, and topics the interviewee cares about may never come up.
Semi-structured interview
A guide of mostly open questions is written beforehand. During the interview, questions can be reordered, dropped or followed up.
It combines some structure with room to explore. Interviews differ from each other, so comparing them takes care.
Unstructured interview
One or two open questions start a conversation, and the interviewee largely decides where it goes.
The account is the interviewee's own. It takes long, suits few people, and gives data that are hard to analyse.
Focus group
A small group discusses the topic, guided by a facilitator.
People respond to each other, which brings out ideas, and several are heard in one session. Dominant members can steer it, and others may fall in with them: conformity.
Schedule · Guide · Conversation · Group
For exercise and mood, a structured interview could put the same ten questions to fifty gym members. A focus group of eight runners would show how they talk about running among themselves.
How to tell them apart: A schedule that never changes: structured.
A guide that bends to the answers: semi-structured.
A starting question and an open road: unstructured.
Key idea: An interview has three stages, and decisions in each one affect how far the data can be trusted.
Three stages
Before
Prepare an interview guide and pilot it.
Select the participants and obtain informed consent.
Choose and train the interviewer: someone the interviewees will feel able to talk to.
During
Audio-record, with consent, so that attention stays on the interviewee.
Keep reactions even. Tone, expression and leading follow-ups all shape what is said: interviewer effects.
After
Produce a transcript: the recording written out in full.
Code it for recurring ideas and gather these into themes.
Debrief the interviewee and protect confidentiality.
Prepare · Conduct · Analyse
A focus group follows a sequence.
Engagement questions open it up: "What kind of exercise do you do?" Exploration questions carry the topic: "How are you different on the days you exercise?" An exit question closes it: "Have we missed anything?"
Seating is planned as well: a circle, with the facilitator as part of it.
Exam tip: Asked to describe your interview, work through the stages: what you prepared, how it was conducted and recorded, and what was done with the recording.
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Key idea: The strength of self-report is access to inner experience. Its weakness is that the access runs through the person's own memory and motives.
Strengths
- Attitudes, feelings and beliefs become data
- Anonymity raises the validity of what people report
Limits
- Insight into one's own behaviour is limited; memory is imperfect
- Social desirability: answers adjusted to give a good impression
Each method has a price
Surveys
Gain: low cost, fast, with large and widely spread samples.
Cost: no chance to clarify or probe. Everything depends on how well the questions are written.
Interviews
Gain: depth, flexibility and the interviewee's own perspective.
Cost: time-consuming, with small samples, and open to interviewer effects.
Focus groups
Gain: interaction produces ideas that no single interview would.
Cost: conformity, dominant members, and confidentiality that cannot be guaranteed.
Survey · Interview · Focus group
The biases fall on two sides.
From the respondent: social desirability bias and recall bias.
From the researcher: leading questions in the wording, and interviewer bias in the way questions are asked and answers are received.
How researchers reduce them: Anonymous responses, neutral wording and a pilot deal with the first three.
Training, and a guide that every interviewer follows, deal with the fourth.
Your four class practicals
- Your class runs four small studies of its own, called class practicals: an experiment, an interview, an observation and a survey.
- Paper 2 asks about the ones your class ran.
- Keep a short note of each: aim, what you did, who took part, what you found, and the ethics.
How this is asked: The interview or focus group and the survey are both class practicals, so every question shape applies to them. One asks you to design an interview or a survey on the topic of a practical that used another method, for 6 marks.
Six decisions, six short paragraphs
- The aim, the type of interview, and why it fits.
- The participants and how they are chosen.
- The guide: the kind of questions, with examples.
- How it is conducted: where, how long, by whom.
- How it is recorded and analysed.
- The ethics: consent, confidentiality, debriefing.
The trap: a questionnaire read aloud: A list of closed questions with fixed answers is a survey, even if someone reads it out.
An interview design needs open questions and room for follow-ups.
Your class practical was an experiment. Your class tested whether a ten-minute walk improves mood more than ten minutes of sitting. Design a semi-structured interview to investigate the same topic you investigated in your class practical.
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