How to ask Effective Questions

Questioning is one of the most important techniques that trainers, teachers, lecturers, managers and facilitators need to master.

It can be used to:

• get and maintain interest,
• maintain interest in a discussion,
• stimulate and guide participant thinking,
• evaluate and summarise,
• encourage participation,
• determine trainee attitudes,
• develop the subject.

Good questions are:

• purposeful
• clear and concise,
• related to the objective,
• challenging,
• limited to one idea,
• directed to the entire group,
• distributed at random to different participants.

Asking questions

Try the following to increase participation through questions:

1. Prepare the questions in advance.
2. Ask the question.
3. Pause to give all participants time to answer the question mentally.
4. Call on a particular participant by name.
5. Listen to all the answers to catch any misconceptions and pick up on additional learning.
6. Reinforce by praising appropriately, paraphrasing, adding overlooked points and restating the answer.

Types of question

There are five different question types that you can use:

1. Factual recall
2. Comparison
3. Opinion
4. Case study
5. Rhetorical

These five types can be further categorised into:

• Closed and
• Open questions

Factual recall questions

Factual recall questions test the ability to remember facts or procedures. They:

• are easy to formulate,
• are easy to evaluate — the participant is either right or wrong,
• do not test the participant’s ability to analyse a situation.

Examples

“How many different types of questions are there?”

“What are the characteristics of a good question?”

Comparison questions

Comparison questions compare known information with new information. They help you to:

• proceed from the known to the unknown,
• to impart new information if there is already some knowledge to build on.

Examples

“In what ways does streaming differ from downloading?”

“When a customer is indifferent to your product, you would probe to uncover areas of dissatisfaction. How would your approach differ if the customer objected to the product?”

Opinion questions

Opinion questions ask for opinions or ideas about a subject. They are useful in:

• uncovering misconceptions,
• uncovering attitudes about the subject matter,
• evaluating how the learning will be transferred back to the workplace.

Examples

“How would you define productivity?”
“How will you use this information when you go back to your office?”

Case study questions

Case study questions — very often presented as a written exercise — are designed to give an opportunity for practising new learning by solving a problem. They must:

• be relevant to problems found on the job,
• include all necessary information so that an answer can be reached,
• be planned in advance.

Verbal case study questions should be thought out thoroughly before beginning a session to ensure relevance to participants’ jobs and the session objectives.

Examples

“Using the given productivity standards, how long would it take to complete editing an article of 100 pages?”

“How would you deal with the way Martin spoke to Andrew?”

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are questions that:

• do not necessarily require an answer,
• are principally used to emphasise a point,
• can be used when responses are not forthcoming.

Beware of falling into the habit of asking questions and always answering them yourself.

Examples

“Would you take a sledgehammer to crack a nut? — of course not.”

“You wouldn’t turn down the offer of more money, would you?”

Closed questions

Closed questions can be adequately answered in a few words. Many closed questions begin with: Are… Can… Was… Who… Did… Do… Which… When… etc.

Examples

Identification questions
“What kind of machine is this?”
“Who is responsible for distributing this form?

Either-or questions
“Which do you think is better at sustaining discussion — open or closed questions”

“Who is right — the supervisor or the trainee?”

Yes-no questions
“Does preparing the lesson plan come before setting the objectives?”
“Is ‘Defining the Problem’ the first step in the problem-solving process?”

Open questions

Open questions cannot be answered adequately in a few words. Open questions often begin with: What… Why… How… etc.

Examples

Opinion questions
“What do you think about… ?”
“Why should Martin lead the group?”
“Why do you think the associate found the error?”

Factual questions
“What evidence did the police have?”
“How have you been handling the process until now?”
“What contributes to a good training session?”

Case study questions
“What should the supervisor do now?”
“How would you implement the solution?”

Techniques for asking questions

There are four techniques for asking questions:

1. Direct
2. Overhead
3. Reversed
4. Redirected

Direct questions

Direct questions are directed to a particular person.

Overhead questions

Overhead questions are thrown out with no indication of who is to reply.

Advantages

• Can be used to begin or stimulate discussion.
• They give you a quick idea of the kind of participants that are in the group.
• They engage the attention of the whole group.

Disadvantages

• Participants can lean on each others’ ideas.
• May discourage participation (especially new group members).
• Talkative participants may dominate.
• They can weaken the control of the group.
• More than one person may talk at once.
• It becomes easier to get off the subject.

Reversed questions

Reversed questions are returned to the participant. They are helpful when you:

• want a participant-centred discussion,
• feel that the participant knows the answer and hasn’t thought the question through.

If reversed questions are used too often, the participant will think you are hiding behind this technique and that you don’t know the answer. Participants may resent you handing the questions back and become embarrassed or hostile.

Example

Student: “When would you use a reverse question?”
Trainer: “When do you think you should use a reverse question?”

Redirected questions

Redirected questions are questions that you are asked but are rephrased and passed on to the group or another person. The technique is useful when you want to keep the discussion participant-centred.

Participants may want you to answer or become embarrassed when another group member can answer. Do not use this technique as a cover-up for not knowing the answer. The redirection technique is used to best effect with opinion questions.

Example

Peter: “How would you define efficiency?”
Trainer: “Peter has asked for a definition of efficiency — how would you define it, John?”

Types of questions to avoid

This section discusses the types of questions that will give you nothing but trouble. Question types that should be avoided at all costs. The five types to avoid are:

1. Catch questions
2. Irrelevant questions
3. Leading questions
4. Pumping questions
5. Ambiguous questions

Catch questions

Catch questions trick a participant into making a mistake. This type of question is used because a mistaken feeling will emphasise the importance of the material.

Catch questions make trainees suspicious of questions and suspicious of you. If catch questions are used repeatedly, participants may refuse to give answers. How would you react to being asked a question you couldn’t answer or having to solve a problem you couldn’t solve?

Example

An instructor leaves an essential piece of information out of a case study and then asks a question relating to that information.

Irrelevant questions

These are questions that are not relevant to the objective or are ‘nice to know’ rather than ‘need to know’. This type of question might be used because of comfort with the subject and a desire to experiment with it.

Irrelevant questions can confuse participants about the session's objective. Important information may be missed because too much time is spent on irrelevant details.

Leading questions

Questions are asked which suggest the required answer. Typically they begin with: “Wouldn’t you say that…” or “Don’t you think…”. No learning takes place with this type of question. It’s very easy to fall into asking this type of question when you feel you are not getting the right responses.

Pumping questions

This is the reverse question gone wild. An attempt is made to extract a response from a participant who doesn’t know or is unwilling to answer the question. Participants can become embarrassed, resentful or openly hostile. The group will tend to sympathise with the person concerned.

Ambiguous questions

These questions are vague, indefinite, or have a double meaning. This can happen when you try to "ad-lib" case study problem questions. Ambiguous questions can waste time, limit discussion, cause participants to become suspicious and be the source of arguments between you and the group as to the meaning of the question.