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Interviews and questionnaires are known as self-report measures because the child under study answers questions about his or her experiences, attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and behavior. Interviews can take place in person, over the phone, or over the Internet.

One type of interview is the open-ended interview, in which a trained interviewer uses a conversational style that encourages the child under study to expand his or her responses. Interviewers may vary the order of questions, probe, and ask additional questions based on responses. The scientist begins with a question and then follows up with prompts to obtain a better view of the person’s reasoning (Ginsburg, 1997). An example of this is the Piagetian Clinical Interview, which requires specialized training to administer. Consider this dialogue between Piaget and a 6-year-old child:

 You know what a dream is?

 When you are asleep and you see something.

 Where does it come from?

 The sky.

 Can you see it?

 No! Yes, when you’re asleep.

 Could I see it if I was there?

 No.

 Why not?

 Because it is in front of us. … When you are asleep you dream and you see them, but when you aren’t asleep you don’t see them.

 (Piaget, 1929, p. 93)

Open-ended interviews allow children to explain their thoughts thoroughly and in their own words. They also enable scientists to gather a large amount of information quickly. Open-ended interviews are very flexible as well. However, their flexibility poses a challenge: When questions are phrased differently for each child, responses may not capture real differences in how children think about a given topic and instead may reflect differences in how the questions were posed and followed up by the interviewer.

A structured interview poses the same set of questions to each child in the same way. On one hand, structured interviews are less flexible than open-ended interviews. On the other hand, because all children receive the same set of questions, differences in responses are more likely to reflect true differences among children and not merely differences in the manner of interviewing. For example, Evans, Milanak, Medeiros, and Ross (2002) used a structured interview to examine American children’s beliefs about magic. Children between the ages of 3 and 8 were asked the following set of questions:

 What is magic? Who can do magic?

 Is it possible to have special powers? Who has special powers?

 Does someone have to learn to do magic? Where have you seen magic? (p. 49)

After compiling and analyzing the children’s responses as well as administering several cognitive tasks, the researchers concluded that even older children, who have the ability to think logically and perform concrete operations, may display magical beliefs.

To collect data from large samples of people, scientists may compile and use questionnaires, also called surveys, made up of sets of questions, typically multiple choice. Questionnaires can be administered in person, online, or by telephone, email, or postal mail. Questionnaires are popular data collection methods with adolescents because they are easy to use and enable scientists to collect information from many people quickly and inexpensively. Scientists who conduct research on sensitive topics, such as sexual interest and experience, often use questionnaires because they can easily be administered anonymously, protecting participants’ privacy. For example, the Monitoring the Future Study is an annual survey of 50,000 eighth-, tenth-, and twelfth-grade students that collects information about their behaviors, attitudes, and values concerning drug and alcohol use (Miech et al., 2017). The survey permits scientists to gather an enormous amount of data, yet its anonymity protects the adolescents from the consequences of sharing personal information that they might not otherwise reveal. Questionnaires, however, rely on a child’s ability to read and understand questions and provide responses. It is not until late childhood and, more often, adolescence that questionnaires become feasible sources of data.

Despite their ease of use, self-report measures are not without challenges. Sometimes children give socially desirable answers: They respond in ways they would like themselves to be perceived or believe researchers desire. A fifth-grade student completing a survey about cheating, for example, might sometimes peek at other students’ tests, but she might choose survey answers that do not reflect this behavior. Her answers might instead match the person she aspires to be or the behavior she believes her teacher expects—that is, someone who does not cheat on exams. Self-report data, then, may not always reflect children’s understanding, attitudes, or behavior.