At the end of this module, students will be able to:
- Conduct an interview, and develop a suitable strategy of analysis as well as a coding scheme.
- Report on an interview study, and assess its quality.
- Develop, conduct, and analyze a personality test.
- Report on a personality test study, and assess its quality.
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The 'Design and Research' study unit is part of the module The Individual (202000334) and students complete the project in this study unit.
To answer the question: “how can I know a person?”, you will first need to gain knowledge about the unique individual in front of you. Then, you will want to compare certain aspects of that individual with other people. The project therefore centres on two approaches: an ideographic approach, focusing on individual uniqueness and intrapersonal processes, and a nomothetic approach, looking at general patterns and individual differences. The ideographic method is more of a qualitative method based on interpretation, whereas the nomothetic approach is more of a quantitative one, involving statistics. The ideographic method fits the narrative approach, whereas the nomothetic method fits the trait approach in personality psychology. The project will demonstrate that these methods complement each other. You will collect data using an existing interview schedule and do a content analysis of the interviews. Next, you will use the insights from the interview study to develop a test that assesses a particular aspect of a personality trait, and collect data via an online questionnaire. You will use statistics to analyse these data. You will write a group report on the interview study and the test development, in two subsequent deliverables.
Theme project: The Big Five model of personality traits is the model most commonly used in personality theory. Research shows that the five personality traits hold weak relations with academic success. However, behind the five major personality traits, more detailed facets are hidden. Furthermore, trait measures assess functioning across all domains of life. Hence, the relation between personality and academic success might better be assessed at the level of trait facets within a particular domain: in this case the academic domain. As there are no instruments assessing traits facets in the academic domain, you will develop one in the project. Each project group will investigate a single facet of a personality trait. First, you will conduct an interview study to explore which behaviours are important from the perspective of students. You will ask them to recount various situations in which they did or did not display this facet of their personality in their academic studies. You will draw up a coding scheme to identify the various behaviours. Together with your project group you will use the findings of the interview study to formulate several items as part of a test to measure this facet in the academic domain. You will then conduct this test in an online environment among you peers, and assess its quality by means of statistical analyses, based on factor analysis, classical test theory, and item response theory.
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This study unit is part of the module The Individual (202000334). A module is offered as one educational unity and students take it as such.
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