Introduction

Self-report questionnaires are among the most widely used methods of psychological measurement. This popularity is a result of many advantages that self-reports hold over alternative assessment methods. Most notably, the technique is very time-efficient for the researcher or professional; time spent on administration and scoring is typically minimal, yet a large amount of information can be obtained. Furthermore, the technique lends itself to high quality standardization. With objective scoring procedures, responses can be compared with high reliability to various large samples of interest, a normative comparison facilitated by the efficiency of the data collection. Finally, self-report offers an opportunity to directly measure the phenomenology or subjective experience of the respondent. For most constructs, subjective experience is [Page 867]a critical part of the concept; it is ...