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GCSE Psychology · key term
A self-report method that collects information through spoken questions.
Used by AQA and OCR
Paper 1
Revise: Choosing and Evaluating Research MethodsQuestionnaires, interviews, case studies and observational studies gather information without deliberately manipulating an IV. They can describe behaviour and experiences, but do not establish cause and effect on their own. No method is best for every question: choosing well means balancing control, realism, detail, practicality and ethics.
Paper 1, Paper 2
A self-report research method in which a researcher directly asks a participant questions and records their answers.
Identify interview type by whether the questions and their order are fixed, not simply by whether questions are open or closed. A structured interview can include open questions.
Do not claim that structured interviews guarantee truthful answers or that unstructured interviews always have high validity. Both can be affected by social desirability and interviewer effects.
When choosing an interview type, explain why its features suit the research objective: comparison across participants or detailed exploration of individual experiences.
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An interview is a self-report research method: a researcher asks a participant questions directly and records their answers. Interviews can take place face-to-face, over the telephone or online. They allow psychologists to investigate thoughts, feelings and experiences that cannot necessarily be understood by watching behaviour alone.
