Open-ended Questions

A variant on technique 11, Strategic Questioning, this exercise alerts people to a tendency to rely on closed questions and asks them to turn these into generative, open-ended questions.

Purposes

• To alert participants to the frequency with which closed questions are posed
• To provide practice in distinguishing between open-ended and closed questions
• To help people learn how to turn closed questions into a more generative format
• To change perceptions that open-ended questions are too loose and unfocused

How It Works

• In small groups of four or five members, participants are presented with ten questions on a topic. Some are clearly open-ended, some clearly closed, and some are somewhat ambiguous.
• Members discuss the guidelines they will use to distinguish between open-ended and closed questions.
• Possible guidelines include that open-ended questions have no single, final answer, whereas closed questions usually do; open questions often start with “why” or “how” and closed questions often begin with “what,” “who,” or “when”; the answers to closed questions can be easily researched, whereas open questions are usually too complicated for this and need extensive research; closed questions usually have objective, factual answers, whereas open questions often invite responses based on personal experience.
• Using these guidelines, groups label each of the prepared questions with either an O (open-ended), a C (closed), or an A (ambiguous).
• Once questions are labeled, groups revise the questions so that the C and A questions are converted to O questions.
• Using all of the questions they have developed, each group chooses the open-ended question that has the greatest potential for fostering lively discussion.
• The exercise ends with groups conducting technique 1, Circle of Voices, using the single question chosen.

Where and When It Works Well

1. With young people. Because this exercise is loosely based on one stage of the question formulation technique developed by K–12 educators Rothstein and Santana (2011), this works well in schools and youth-oriented community settings.
2. In organizational meetings. Practicing the habit of asking mostly open-ended questions generates new topics and new avenues for discussion.
3. In team and community assessment. Along with assessment protocols tied to the accomplishment of predefined goals, Open-Ended Questions helps capture unintended consequences and overlooked achievements.
4. In facilitator, leader, and teacher-training workshops. We often use this exercise in workshops on creativity and inclusiveness for facilitators, leaders, and teachers.

What Users Appreciate

1. Its creativity and openness. Students appreciate open-ended questions for stimulating thinking and opening up discussion, removing pressure to guess the correct answer.
2. How it promotes feelings of equality. When there is no single right answer, everyone is on roughly the same level in addressing the question.
3. Practicality. Distinguishing between closed and open questions reinforces the value of open questions and how they can be formulated more readily.

What to Watch Out For

1. Fretting over the question types. Sometimes there is no clear-cut way to settle on question type, especially those appearing to be ambiguous. Remind people not to spend too long on this. The primary purpose is to give people concrete practice reframing questions to make them more open-ended.
2. Wanting to know if the “right” guidelines have been developed. Talking through the criteria to distinguish open-ended from closed questions can sometimes take up the bulk of the time available. Let groups know when it's time to move into classifying particular questions.
3. Choosing the best question. At the end of the exercise, when the group is trying to settle on a question to discuss briefly, the members might find themselves caught between three or four questions they like. Again, let groups know that just the act of deliberating over this issue is the point, not whether they actually chose the “right” question.
4. Pointlessness. Because this is not tied to solving an immediate problem, people often need to be persuaded that it's worth spending time doing this to prepare for future problem-solving discussions.

Questions That Fit This Protocol

This exercise is about turning closed and ambiguous questions into open-ended ones so the questions you use will vary according to context and setting. Using this book as an example, closed question examples are “Should this book be used to train discussion facilitators?” “Is it justified to call on people to speak?” Open question examples are “What do good discussions look like?” “What do discussion facilitators need to know to be effective?” Ambiguous question examples are “How can this book be used to train our facilitators?” “How will this book solve our communication problems?”