Comparing Free-Format and Fixed-Format Self-Report Measures for Assessing Math Anxiety in High School Students- Benefits and Challenges

Comparing Free-Format and Fixed-Format Self-Report Measures for Assessing Math Anxiety in High School Students- Benefits and Challenges

My Preferred Self-Report Measure if I Was a Researcher and a Participant in the Study.

In psychological research studies, there are two major formats that can be used to collect the respondents’ feelings, emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. Stangor (2015) refers to these tools used for such purposes as self-report measures. Free-format self-report measures do not have a pre-defined structure and assume a loose structure that allows citizens to express their thoughts and opinions freely. It is suitable for studies that require in-depth explanations to understand the causes or relationship between phenomena, such as why people believe in a certain myth. In this context, a free-format tool that would be suitable for the study of the sources of happiness for different people is an associative list (Jackson, 2015). The list will contain the various indicators of happiness that will be assessed. From a participant’s perspective, I would also prefer an associative list in such a study since the researcher will be interested in investigating a specific set of indicators from each individual. Hire our assignment writing services in case your assignment is devastating you.

My preference for a fixed-format self-report measure, like the Likert type scale or semantic differential, is that I would administer it if I were a researcher and a participant in the study.

Fixed-format self-report measures are research tools with a pre-defined and specific structure that offers a set of answers from which the respondents choose from (Stangor, 2015). The response freedom is limited, and respondents are directed to specific study variables and/or questions. Fixed-format measures are suitable for studies that do not require in-depth explanations to understand the phenomena under study. The appropriate fixed-format measure to assess the subject matter of the proposed conceptual variable is a Likert Scale. The scale will contain the indicators that act as the measures of the bigger conceptual variable: happiness. The scale will contain five points where respondents will indicate the extent to which they agree to the various indicators as contributing to their happiness. If I were a respondent, I would prefer a Likert Scale since it is more straightforward compared to other fixed-format measures.

 References

Jackson, S. (2015). Research Methods and Statistics: A Critical Thinking Approach. Cengage Learning.

Stangor, C. (2015). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (5th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

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Assignment: Self-Report Measures
Self-report measures are widely used for data collection for psychological studies. There are two types of self-report measures: free-format and fixed-format. If you design a survey involving math anxiety among freshman high school students, you could ask them to freely express their thoughts and feelings about math anxiety and record the responses precisely as given. Or, you could present students with a set of questions to measure their levels of math anxiety in which they select their answers from a given list of options. What could be the benefits and challenges of using each of these formats? You need to be able to answer such questions before deciding on a study format.

Comparing Free-Format and Fixed-Format Self-Report Measures for Assessing Math Anxiety in High School Students- Benefits and Challenges

For this Assignment, you compare free-format and fixed-format self-report measures.

To prepare:

Review Chapter 4 from the course text.
The Assignment (1 page):

Respond to the following:

Explain which particular free-format self-report measure (e.g., select from projective measures or associative lists) you would prefer to administer if you were a researcher and explain why. Would you prefer a different one if you were a participant in the study? Explain.
Explain which particular fixed-format self-report measure (e.g. Likert type scale, semantic differential) you would prefer to administer if you were a researcher, and explain why. Would you prefer a different one if you were a participant in the study? Explain.
Note: Support the responses within your Assignment with evidence from the assigned Learning Resources. Provide a reference list of resources you used for this Assignment.