See also: Questioning Skills and Techniques
Although there are numerous reasons for asking questions the information we receive back (the answer) will depend very much on the type of question we ask.
Questions, in their simplest form, can either be open or closed - this page covers both types but also details many other question types and when it may be appropriate to use them, in order to improve understanding.
Closed Questions
Closed questions invite a short focused answer- answers to closed questions can often (but not always) be either right or wrong. Closed questions are usually easy to answer - as the choice of answer is limited - they can be effectively used early in conversations to encourage participation and can be very useful in fact-finding scenarios such as research.
Closed questions are used to force a brief, often one-word answer.
- Closed questions can simply require a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer, for example: ‘Do you smoke?’, ‘Did you feed the cat?’, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
- Closed questions can require that a choice is made from a list of possible options, for example: ‘Would you like beef, chicken or the vegetarian option?’, ‘Did you travel by train or car today?’
- Closed questions can be asked to identify a certain piece of information, again with a limited set of answers, for example: ‘What is your name?’, ‘What time does the supermarket open?’, ‘Where did you go to University?’
Open Questions
By contrast, to closed questions, open questions allow for much longer responses and therefore potentially more creativity and information. There are lots of different types of open question; some are more closed than others!
Leading or ‘Loaded’ Questions
A leading question, usually subtly, points the respondent’s answer in a certain direction.
Asking an employee, ‘How are you getting on with the new finance system?’ This question prompts the person to question how they are managing with a new system at work. In a very subtle way it raises the prospect that maybe they are not finding the new system so good.
‘Tell me how you’re getting on with the new finance system’ is a less leading question – the question does not require any judgement to be made and therefore does not imply that there may be something wrong with the new system.
Children are particularly susceptible to leading questions and are more likely to take the lead for an answer from an adult. Something simple like, ‘Did you have a good day at school?’ points the child towards thinking about good things that happened at school. By asking, ‘How was school today?’ you are not asking for any judgement about how good or bad the day has been and you are more likely to get a more balanced, accurate answer. This can shape the rest of the conversation, the next question may be, ‘What did you do at school?’ - the answer to this may vary based on the first question you asked – good things or just things.
Recall and Process Questions
Questions can also be categorised by whether they are ‘recall’ – requiring something to be remembered or recalled, or ‘process’ – requiring some deeper thought and/or analysis.
A simple recall question could be, ‘What is your mother’s maiden name?’. This requires the respondent to recall some information from memory, a fact. A school teacher may ask recall questions of their pupils, ‘What is the highest mountain?’ Process questions require more thought and analysis and/or a sharing of opinion. Examples include, ‘What skills can you bring to this organisation that the other applicants cannot?’ or ‘What are the advantages and disadvantages of asking leading questions to children?’
Rhetorical questions are often humorous and don’t require an answer.
‘If you set out to fail and then succeed have you failed or succeeded?’ Rhetorical questions are often used by speakers in presentations to get the audience to think – rhetorical questions are, by design, used to promote thought.
Politicians, lecturers, priests and others may use rhetorical questions when addressing large audiences to help keep attention. ‘Who would not hope to stay healthy into old age?’, is not a question that requires an answer, but our brains are programmed to think about it thus keeping us more engaged with the speaker.
Funnelling
We can use clever questioning to essentially funnel the respondent’s answers – that is ask a series of questions that become more (or less) restrictive at each step, starting with open questions and ending with closed questions or vice-versa.
For example:
"Tell me about your most recent holiday." "What did you see while you were there?" "Were there any good restaurants?" "Did you try some local delicacies?"
"Did you try the Clam Chowder?"
The questions in this example become more restrictive, starting with open questions which allow for very broad answers, at each step the questions become more focused and the answers become more restrictive.
Funnelling can work the other way around, starting with closed questions and working up to more open questions. For a counsellor or interrogator these funnelling techniques can be a very useful tactic to find out the maximum amount of information, by beginning with open questions and then working towards more closed questions. In contrast, when meeting somebody new it is common to start by asking more closed questions and progressing to open questions as both parties relax. (See our page: What is Counselling? for more on the role of the counsellor.)
Responses
As there are a myriad of questions and question types so there must also be a myriad of possible responses. Theorists have tried to define the types of responses that people may have to questions, the main and most important ones are:
- A direct and honest response – this is what the questioner would usually want to achieve from asking their question.
- A lie – the respondent may lie in response to a question. The questioner may be able to pick up on a lie based on plausibility of the answer but also on the non-verbal communication that was used immediately before, during and after the answer is given.
- Out of context – The respondent may say something that is totally unconnected or irrelevant to the question or attempt to change the topic. It may be appropriate to reword a question in these cases.
- Partially Answering – People can often be selective about which questions or parts of questions they wish to answer.
- Avoiding the answer – Politicians are especially well known for this trait. When asked a ‘difficult question’ which probably has an answer that would be negative to the politician or their political party, avoidance can be a useful tact. Answering a question with a question or trying to draw attention to some positive aspect of the topic are methods of avoidance.
- Stalling – Although similar to avoiding answering a question, stalling can be used when more time is needed to formulate an acceptable answer. One way to do this is to answer the question with another question.
- Distortion – People can give distorted answers to questions based on their perceptions of social norms, stereotypes and other forms of bias. Different from lying, respondents may not realise their answers are influenced by bias or they exaggerate in some way to come across as more ‘normal’ or successful. People often exaggerate about their salaries.
- Refusal – The respondent may simply refuse to answer, either by remaining silent or by saying, ‘I am not answering’.
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A key part of creating excellent online surveys involves using open-ended and closed-ended questions effectively.
Before we move forward in discussing how to use them, let’s define each:
A closed-ended question is made up of pre-populated answer choices for the respondent to choose from; while an open-ended question asks the respondent to provide feedback in their own words.
Let’s take a deeper look at both question types, review their strengths and weaknesses, and clarify when to use each of them. Ready? Let’s jump right in!
Closed-ended questions come in a multitude of forms, including: multiple choice, drop down, checkboxes, and ranking questions. Each question type doesn’t allow the respondent to provide unique or unanticipated answers, but rather, choose from a list of pre-selected options. It’s like being offered spaghetti or hamburgers for dinner, instead of being asked “What would you like for dinner?”
Closed-ended questions are easier to complete than open-ended questions. Why? Because closed-ended questions lay out all of the possible answers, removing respondents’ task of coming up with their own responses.
So when you find yourself surveying an audience who may not be excited about what you’re asking them, air on the side of using closed-ended questions. It’ll give them an easier survey-taking experience and, in the process, provide you with a higher completion rate.
If you’re looking for statistically significant stats, closed-ended questions are the way to go. Going back to our earlier example, using a closed-ended question can help us arrive at stats like: 70% of respondents want to eat spaghetti for dinner versus 30% who prefer hamburgers.
Questions that are closed-ended are conclusive in nature as they are designed to create data that is easily quantifiable. The fact that questions of this type are easy to code makes them particularly useful when trying to prove the statistical significance of a survey’s results. Furthermore, the information gained by closed-ended questions allows researchers to categorize respondents into groups based on the options they have selected.
In other words, they allow you to conduct demographic studies. Why is this valuable?
Imagine that the manager of a designer clothing store believes that certain types of people are more likely to visit their store and purchase their clothing than others. To decipher which segment groups are most likely to be their customers, the manager could design a survey for anyone who has been a visitor. This survey could include closed-ended questions on gender, age, employment status, and any other demographic information they’d like to know. Then, it would be followed by questions on how often they visit the store and the amount of money they spend annually. Since all the questions are closed-ended, the store manager could easily quantify the responses and determine the profile of their typical customer. In this case, the manager may learn that her most frequent customers are female students, ages 18-25. This knowledge would allow her to move forward with an action plan on how to cater to this niche better or break into other target demographics.
The major drawback to closed-ended questions is that a researcher must already have a clear understanding of the topic of his/her questions and how they tie into the overall research problem before they are created. Without this, closed-ended questions will lead to insufficient options for respondents to select from, questions that do not properly reflect the research’s purpose, and limited or erroneous information.
For example, if I asked the question, “do you get to work by driving, busing, or walking?” I would have accidentally omitted carpooling, biking, cartwheeling or any other form of transportation I am unaware of. Instead, it would have been better for me to ask the open-ended question of “how do you get to work?” to learn all the different types of answer before forcing the selection based on a list of several options.
Open-ended questions are exploratory in nature, and offer the researchers rich, qualitative data. In essence, they provide the researcher with an opportunity to gain insight on all the opinions on a topic they are not familiar with. However, being qualitative in nature makes these types of questions lack the statistical significance needed for conclusive research.
Since questions that are open-ended ask for the critical thinking and uncut opinion of the respondent, they are perfect for gaining information from specialists in a field that the researcher is less qualified in. Example: If I wanted to learn the history of Ancient China (something I know very little about), I could create my survey for a selected group of historians whose focus is Ancient China. My survey would then be filled with broad open-ended questions that are designed to receive large amounts of content and provide the freedom for the expert to demonstrate their knowledge.
Open-ended questions can be useful for surveys that are targeting a small group of people because there is no need for complex statistical analysis and the qualitative nature of the questions will give you more valuable input from each respondent. The rule here is the group must be small enough for the surveyor to be able to read each unique response and reflect on the information provided. Example: A supervisor who is looking for performance feedback from his/her team of six employees. The supervisor would benefit more from questions that allow the respondents to freely answer rather than forcing them into closed-ended questions that will limit their responses.
As stated in the closed-ended questions section, conclusive research usually requires preliminary research to be conducted in order to design the appropriate research objects, survey structure and questions. Open-ended questions can reveal to the surveyor a variety of opinions and behaviours among the population that they never realized. It is therefore, incredibly useful to use open-ended questions to gain information for further quantitative research.
It is usually a good idea in any survey, no matter how large, to leave an open-ended comments question at the end. This is especially in the case of a survey asking closed-ended questions on attitudes, opinions, or behaviours. Forcing respondents to answer closed-ended questions asks them to fit in your box of options and can leave them with extra information or concerns that they want to share with you. Providing respondents with the outlet of a comment box is showing them the respect they deserve for taking the time to fill out your survey.
There are a few drawbacks to open-ended questions as well. Though respondent answers are almost always richer in quality, the amount of effort it takes to digest the information provided can sometimes be overwhelming. That is why open-ended questions work best in studies with smaller populations. Furthermore, if your survey sample is a fraction of the population you are studying, you will be looking to find data which can be inferred on the overall population as statistically significant. Unfortunately, open-ended questions cannot be used in this manner, as each response should be seen as a unique opinion.