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Concept 5.1 Positive and negative factors in self-report and other-report
Potential Type of report
factors
Self-report
Positive • Self-report is one of the very few ways that we can gain
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access to the learner’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and
strategies.
• Self-report may be needed as a check on the findings of
other-report.
• Social desirability response bias (tendency to report what the
participant thinks the researcher wants) is not an issue in L2
learning strategy studies (a) if it is made clear that there are
no right or wrong answers and that what participants say
will not influence evaluations of the individual by others, and
(b) if, in formal studies, anonymity and confidentiality are
established.
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Negative • Interpretations of retrospective self-report might be clouded
by memory loss; automaticity of the behaviour, making it
unconscious; or complexity (Anderson and Vandergrift,
1996).
• Interpretations might be marred by a participant’s irrelevant
comments about “epiphenomena,” inarticulateness, or
inability to generalize over a number of recent task
performances (see White et al., 2007).
• Interpretations can be hampered by the researcher’s lack of
understanding or cultural assumptions too distant from or
too similar to those of the participant.
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• If a self-report occurs during an L2 task, this can be
experienced as intrusive (Cohen and Scott, 1996) or
burdensome (Branch, 2000).
• Self-report can have social desirability response bias under
some circumstances.
Other-report
• Many kinds of other-report exist, largely via
observation (live observation in the classroom,
computer tracking, neurological observation).
• Other-report can be a check on the findings of
self-report.
• Social desirability response bias is not present in
other-report.
• Other-report in the classroom and via computer
tracking is not generally intrusive.
• Other-report is not clouded by participant
memory loss, irrelevant comments, inarticulateness,
or inability to generalize across tasks.
• Other-report might miss the internal aspects of
L2 learning that could be reported by the
learner, so self-report is needed.
• Even if good observations are possible by the
teacher or researcher, the correct interpretation
of what the observations mean might be difficult
or elusive.
• Other-report can be hampered by the
researcher’s lack of understanding or cultural
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assumptions.