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Asking Open-Ended Questions

PERFORMANCE LEARNING PLUS is a monthly e-newsletter by Performance Learning Systems (PLS), a comprehensive educational services company that has provided a full spectrum of programs, products, and consulting services to educators and business professionals since 1971.

People behave in certain ways for their own reasons -- their agenda. When you clearly understand other people’s agendas you can work more effectively with them. Read more to find out how to discover someone's agenda by ASKING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS*.

TIPS:

ASKING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS is an essential skill to use when coaching a colleague as well as when working with students.

1. BENEFITS

Asking Open-Ended Questions allows for a wide-range of responses and provides an opportunity for the person answering to:

  • Tell you what he or she considers to be important.
  • Have maximum latitude to speak freely.
  • Share more than just facts.

Listening to the answers of Open-Ended Questions helps you to:

  • Gather information about the person's agenda.
  • Clarify your understanding of what is being discussed.
  • Connect with and understand the person better.

2. USING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS FOR COACHING

A successful coach must understand the coachee’s agenda as well as the mission, vision, or beliefs behind the coachee’s strategies and behavior. As you read through the sample Open-Ended Questions below, imagine how you might answer them. Notice how your answers might reveal a lot about your background, beliefs, and feelings.

  • What are your strengths as a teacher?
  • How would you know if your lesson was successful?
  • What have you considered as areas of growth for the year?
  • How do you think coaching will benefit your teaching?
  • If you were a student, what kind of teacher would you like to have?
  • What do you feel contributed to your success today?
  • Imagine it is the end of the school year. What would you want to say about the year?

3. USING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

By asking Open-Ended Questions you can stimulate students to think, find out their agendas, and develop greater understanding about how to work with them. Sample Open-Ended Questions include:

  • What does that mean to you?
  • What do you think will happen next in the story?
  • How did you go about solving that problem?
  • How did you make that choice?
  • What information do you have about that?
  • What would you do differently next time?
  • Why do you feel that way?

4. DAILY PRACTICE

Practice using Open-Ended Questions throughout your day. Remember you want a broad-based response, so your questions should be phrased in such a way that the other person can be expressive, sharing background information, feelings, and intentions. Begin your questions with the words WHAT, HOW, and WHY. Although it takes longer to listen to the responses to Open-Ended Questions, in the long-run you will gain valuable knowledge, which leads to establishing greater trust in your relationships.

Source: The above concepts are based on the book Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching by Stephen Barkley and the PLS graduate courses Coaching Skills for Successful Teaching® and Building Communication and Teamwork in the Classroom®. For more information, see "Helpful Resources" below.

For additional sample related topics, see "Taking It Further" to the right.

*Asking Closed-Ended Questions and using a Confirmatory Paraphrase are two additional verbal skills that help you discover a person’s agenda.

References:

Dillon, J. (1997). Questioning. In D.W. Hargie, (Ed), The handbook of communication skills (pp. 103-133). New York: Routledge. Hunkins, F.P. (1995). Teaching thinking through effective questioning. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. Jarolimek, J. & C.D. Foster (1989). Teaching and learning in the elementary school. New York: Macmillan.

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