In class the other day I did a short presentation on projective techniques in qualitative research, which caught the interest of my peers as it is a relatively unexplored research method.
I would like to illustrate the concept of projective techniques through an example. When you question a man who just bought a Mercedes about his purchase intentions, he will most likely respond by saying things such as “it does not depreciate very much”, “it has better mileage than you would expect”, and “it is comfortable to drive”. However, if you were to ask him as to why he thought his neighbour bought a Mercedes, the same person will likely respond with something like “he’s such a status seeker”. Therefore, it can be said that individuals are likely to give honest answers to disguised questions.
On that note, projective techniques are based on the assumption that when directly questioned, respondents will not express their true feelings as they don’t want to embarrass themselves or they wish to the ‘right’ answer. As such, projective techniques are indirect means of questioning that enables respondents to project beliefs and feelings onto a third party, often providing considerable freedom in their response. They are best used for attitudinal based studies, when it is either difficult for the respondent to qualify their response, when the interviewer is sceptical of the level of honesty in the response, or as a round-about way of asking an otherwise difficult question.
Examples of projective techniques are:
- Word association test
- Sentence completion method (eg. people who drink beer are …)
- Role playing
To read further about projective techniques, please see the article by Haire (1950), who was the first to write about them in the Journal of Marketing. The article can be found by following the link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1246942
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