Intervew Techniques- Question Types

Open questions are questions that have a longer answer. If the interviewer asks the interviewee an open question then the interviewee would answer with a longer answer than a closed question. When the interviewer asks open questins the interviewee has controll of where it goes and how they answer it. It also makes the interviewee's answer longer and more detailed so you find out more about them. The positives of having open questions mean you find out more than you want to know about the interviewee but the negatives are that the interviewee may change the conversation from were you wanted to go.Closed questions are questions that only need a yes or no answer. This can be quite boring in interviews yet it is hard to escape puttng them in, a good balance between open ad closed questions is always good. They are perfect for voxpop quetions or just short red carpet interviews that only need a simple yes or no. The advantage is if you want to aks a question that only requires a one word answer but the disadvantge is if you want an interesting interview you cant use closed questions.

This interview with Sarah Harding, Alan asks a mix of open and closed questions. The first question Alan asks is an open question "what's it like being an actress?" He asks her about her acting career to get her talking about it and to start the interview off with some confidence building.

In an interview a single question is a question that only contains one question. Whereas multiple questions are questions that contain more than one question. An example of a single question is: How are you? However you can find more information about the person by using a multiple question and saying: How are you and why are you feeling like this? This is so you find out much more about the person than when you ask a single qustion. However single questions are useful for finding out just one thing. Multiplequestions are always related to the topic in conversation so asking more than one will not confuse the audience. The advantage is it means the answer will be longer and more complex, but the answer may be longer than the interviewer anticipated.

Direct quesions are straight to the point and normally get the answer they were looking for. They usually start with What, Where, Why, When, Who and How. The advantage of these questions is that you will always get a straight answer but the questions may offend the interviewee. Indirect questions are questions that do not need a responce but sometimes gets one. An example of an indirect question would start of with "I wonder...." They are not as subtle but may get and answer out of the interviewee.

Suggestive questions tell the interviewee how they should answer the question and means the interviewer gets the answer they wanted. This type of question is commonly used by a news journalist because they are in contoll of the answer. The negative thing about suggestive questions is they can sometimes seem agressive towards the interviewee therefore they refuse to answer.