How to Ask Effective Questions

From the time we’re very small, we learn to ask questions. They’re a vital part of communicating and learning. To facilitate learning for you and your writer, it’s important to learn to ask effective questions to prompt the student’s critical thinking.

Types of questions

You may have heard of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning and perhaps seen it as a pyramid. At the bottom are basic thinking strategies or ways of showing learning, which are generally considered straightforward and basic, and at the top are more advanced ways of thinking and producing knowledge. Different types of questions can be used at different levels. Often, it’s important to start at the basic level until you’re confident that you’re on the same page as your writer. See the bottom of this page for examples of these types of questions.

1. Knowledge questions: the ability to recall facts, opinions and concepts (“When are commas used?”)
2. Comprehension: the ability to interpret information in one’s own words (“What do you think the author is saying here?”)
3. Application: the ability to apply what is learned to a new situation (“Can you find the other comma mistakes in this paragraph?”)
4. Analysis: ability to determine internal relationships (“How is this quote connected to the ideas in your paragraph?”)
5. Evaluation: the ability to make judgments using criteria and standards (“Is this a strong thesis statement?”)
6. Creation/synthesis: the ability to put facts together into a coherent whole, or, creatively achieve a new understanding by linking facts together (“How do these two topics connect?”)

Open and closed questions

A closed question usually receives a single word or very short, factual answer. For example, “Are you thirsty?” The answer is “Yes” or “No”; “Where do you live?” The answer is generally the name of your town or your address.

Closed questions are good for:

• Testing your understanding, or the other person’s: “So, if I get this qualification, I will get a raise?”
• Concluding a discussion or making a decision: “Now we know the facts, are we all agreed this is the right course of action?”
• Frame setting: “Are you happy with the service from your bank?”

Open questions elicit longer answers. They usually begin with what, why, how. An open question asks the respondent for his or her knowledge, opinion or feelings. “Tell me” and “describe” can also be used in the same way as open questions.

Open questions are good for:

• Developing an open conversation: “What did you get up to on vacation?”
• Finding out more detail: “What else do we need to do to make this a success?”
• Finding out the other person’s opinion or issues: “What do you think about those changes?”

More detailed categories

Broadly speaking, there are three main categories of questions that we use in normal daily life. They are requests, rhetorical, and inquiry questions.

Requests (closed)

These are the questions used when a person seeks permission, or seeks assistance from someone.

• “Can you lend me $20?”
• “May I leave the room?”
• “Am I able to take my holiday from Dec 12 to January 12?”

Rhetorical Questions (mostly closed)

The questioner knows the answer, is not seeking an answer, but has some alternative motive behind the question. For example they may be trying to make a point, demonstrate their own knowledge, or corner another person in an argument.

• “What time do you call this?”
• “Why are you so stupid?”
• “Are you kidding me?”

Rhetorical questions come in a number of forms, one of which is the disguised imperative. These are primarily a command disguised as a question. The question highlights the demand and usually requires an action rather than an answer. You may find that you use this type of rhetorical question at least occasionally in your sessions. Your teachers probably use it too.

• “Do we wear our muddy shoes inside the classroom?”
• “Don’t we need a comma here?”
• “How do we act when we want to ask a question?”
• “What do we take with us to the library to put our books in?”

Inquiry Questions (open)

An ‘inquiry’ or ‘information seeking’ question is one posed by the questioner to obtain needed information within a specific context, aspect, concept, issue, or problem. These are the questions that power learning. These are questions for which neither the question asker nor the person being questioned know the answer. As you might imagine, this is the type of question you and your writer will want to aim for.

Using different types of questions

“Question funnel”

This technique involves starting with general questions, and then drilling down to a more specific point in each. Usually this will involve asking for more and more detail at each level. This type of questioning starts with closed questions and then broadens to include open questions. It’s often used by detectives taking a statement from a witness:

“How many people were involved in the fight?”

“About ten.”

“Were they kids or adults?”

“Mostly kids.”

“What sort of ages were they?”

“About fourteen or fifteen.”

“Were any of them wearing anything distinctive?”

“Yes, several of them had red baseball caps on.”

“Can you remember if there was a logo on any of the caps?”

“Now you come to mention it, yes, I remember seeing a big letter N.”

Using this technique, the detective has helped the witness to re-live the scene and to gradually focus in on a useful detail. Perhaps he’ll be able to identify young men wearing a hat like this from CCTV footage. It is unlikely he would have got this information if he’s simply asked an open question such as “Are there any details you can give me about what you saw?”

Funnel questions are good for:

• Finding out more detail about a specific point: “Tell me more about Option Two.”
• Gaining the interest or increasing the confidence of the person you’re speaking with: “Have you used the IT Helpdesk?,” “Did it solve your problem?,” “What was the attitude of the person who took your call?”

Probing Questions

Asking probing questions is another strategy for finding out more detail. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking your respondent for an example, to help you understand a statement that they have made. At other times, you need additional information for clarification, “When is your essay due, and do you want to make another appointment before you turn it in?” Or to investigate whether there is proof for what has been said, “How do you know that the author of the article believes X?”

Use questions that include the word “exactly” to probe further: “What exactly do you mean when you say you have a problem with paragraph organization?”

Probing questions are good for:

• Gaining clarification to ensure that you have the whole story and that you understand it thoroughly.
• Drawing information out of people who are trying to avoid telling you something.

Important tips

• Make sure that you give the person you’re questioning enough time to respond. This may need to include thinking time before he or she answers, so don’t just interpret a pause as a “No comment” and move on.
• Skillful questioning needs to be matched by careful listening so that you understand what people really mean with their answers.
• Your body language and tone of voice can also play a part in the answers you get when you ask questions.

Example question constructions

Knowledge questions

• What is ___?
• When did ____ happen?
• How would you explain this?
• Why did___?
• How would you describe this idea?

Comprehension questions

• How would you compare this to that?
• How would you explain this in your own words?
• What facts or ideas show ___?
• What evidence is there that___?

Application questions

• What examples can you find to___?
• How would you show your understanding of___?
• What approach would you use to___?
• What might have happened if___?

Analysis questions

• What inference can you make from___?
• How would you classify___?
• How would you categorize ___?
• Can you identify the difference parts?

Evaluation questions

• How would you compare ___ to ___?
• Which do you think is better?
• What was the value or importance of___?
• What would you have recommended if you had been___?

Creation/synthesis questions

• What might have happened if___?
• What else could ____ mean?
• What solution could you propose to this problem?