3 Psychological investigations Self-report

a knowledge and understanding of rating scales Learning outcomes a knowledge and understanding of rating scales an understanding of open and closed questions the strengths and weaknesses of each identify strengths and weaknesses of the technique, both in general terms and in relation to source material These learning outcomes are from the specification

A knowledge and understanding of rating scales Rating scales (for example, Likert scales) enable the participant to give a numerical value to their opinion/feelings, e.g I feel very stressed by exams. This concept of Likhert scales is easy to understand. However the problems of responding 1 every time need to be addressed, so the questions need to sometimes be reversed so that the scoring is then also reversed. This might need some examples, for example, I don’t mind about exams 1 = strongly agree is actually = I am not stressed, so would get a 4 when scoring. Strongly agree Slightly agree Slightly disagree Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4

Open and closed questions Closed questions have a limited set of answers, e.g. Do you feel stressed? Yes/no Open questions allow the participant to answer question in own way, e.g. Tell me about your stress. Fairly straightforward. Students could try finding out someone's favourite film by asking closed questions you can only answer yes and no to, and then an open question. They are obviously not allowed to ask “What is your favourite film”

The strengths and weaknesses of open and closed questions Open question Closed questions Strengths Rich data, less ambiguity Less frustration by participant Easy to compare and analyse data Weaknesses Difficult to compare and analyse data May miss out on data because it falls outside of the allowed responses This information is needed as evaluation for their own research and core studies.

Identify strengths and weaknesses of rating scales can be used many times, and is seen as objective, scientific measure of behaviour Quantitative data so can be analysed easily and comparisons made Good to gauge strength of opinion weaknesses scores only have meaning compared to other people’s responses on that scale Different points on scale may have different meanings to different people so can lack reliability This information is needed as evaluation for students own research and core studies.

A typical exam question A researcher wants to find out about students’ opinions of their college. She wants to use a Likert scale. Give an example of one question and the scale for the response a researcher could use. Give one strength and one weakness of this type of question. This is typical of an exam question on the psychological investigations paper.