Open-ended vs. Close-ended Questions

Open-ended vs. Close-ended Questions

The data collected during research is essential in addressing research questions. One of the methods used to collect data in criminology is interviewing. According to Bachman & Schutt (2024), the goal of interviews is to create a detailed picture of the interviewees’ background, actions, and attitudes. Therefore, researchers or investigators can use open-ended and close-ended questions to gather as much information from the interviewees as possible to create an accurate picture of their attitudes, actions, and backgrounds. Open-ended questions allow respondents to express themselves without being bound to specific alternatives (Baburajan et al., 2022). Open-ended questions also allow respondents to give detailed responses and provide a wide range of responses based on the respondent’s understanding of the question.

Close-ended questions can be answered using a short phrase or a single word. The main variance between open-ended and close-ended questions is that open-ended questions are often explanatory and descriptive. Consequently, close-ended questions are factual and short. Another difference is that open-ended questions begin with ‘describe,” explain,” why,’ and ‘how.’ Consequently, closed-ended questions begin with terms like ‘what,’ ‘do,’ ‘would,’ and ‘is.’ The two types of questions can be used together in research because they allow the researcher or investigator to acquire specific information. Another similarity between the two types of questions is that they can be altered by adjusting phrases and words within the question to get specific information from the respondents.

Open-ended and close-ended questions have advantages and disadvantages that should be considered to determine whether they are appropriate in a specific research or investigation context. One of the advantages of open-ended questions is that they allow the investigator to acquire unlimited responses because respondents could have a different approach to the question. The second advantage is that it allows the investigator to acquire the real opinions of the respondents because they rely on their understanding of the question to provide an appropriate response. Open-ended questions are also effective in understanding the respondents’ opinions, emotions, feelings, and ideas because they provide responses based on the information they have about the topic or issue being discussed and their opinions. On the other hand, closed-ended questions enable the researcher or investigator to acquire information quickly because they require quick and short responses. Another advantage of close-ended questions is that they are simple to analyze because the responses can be assigned values or numbers. For example, an investigator can use numbers to determine how many people have provided a certain response, thus making it easier to analyze data collected through close-ended questions.

The main disadvantage of open-ended questions is that they may yield a lot of unnecessary information since the response is determined by the respondent’s interpretation of the question. The second disadvantage is that respondents spend a lot of time responding because the questions require descriptive responses. Another disadvantage is that responses require individual analysis because each respondent has different opinions and ideas. On the other hand, close-ended questions do not give respondents a chance to answer freely because they require a yes or no answer, using a specific phrase such as agree or disagree or selecting one choice from the provided multiple choices. Close-ended questions also make understanding the respondents’ thoughts, ideas, and opinions difficult because their responses are limited to specific choices. Close-ended questions may also yield false information when the respondents misinterpret the questions.

 References

Baburajan, V., de Abreu e Silva, J., & Pereira, F. C. (2022). Open vs closed-ended questions in attitudinal surveys – comparing, combining, and interpreting using natural language processing. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 137, 103589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2022.103589

Bachman, R., & Schutt, R. K. (2024). The practice of research in Criminology and Criminal Justice. SAGE.

Compare and contrast open-ended and close-ended questions, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each type of question

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Compare and contrast open-ended and close-ended questions, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each type of question