Open-ended questions: what they are and 20 examples

Want to inspire the confidence of your respondents in training exercises, in meetings, in collecting service, product and customer feedback, or in opinion surveys? Put listening and spontaneity at the heart of your conversation with your respondents and customers with the help of open-ended questions!

Essential for collecting feedback, insights and experiences, and encouraging participation in a two-way conversation, open-ended questions are a powerful, versatile communication tool. Unlike closed questions, open-ended questions help your respondents to express themselves freely, in detail and in depth, without restricting their choices of answers, and help you learn more about them and what they think.

What are the advantages of good open-ended questions, and how do you formulate them effectively? Follow our tips to help you learn to master the use of open-ended questions in any situation!

Characteristics of open-ended questions

Open-ended questions generally meet four main criteria:

• They allow many possible answers at the same time
• They encourage respondents to provide a descriptive and detailed response
• They seek to understand ideas and feelings
• They solicit responses, text and data to be analyzed in terms of quality (not quantity)

For example, to the survey question “What do you think of our quiz maker?”, there can be any number of possible answers, depending on the experience of each person.

On the contrary, closed questions are characterized by the following:

• They provide only a limited number of answer choices
• The answer choices are short and specific
• The goal is to collect clear, concise and rapid feedback
• The data will be quantitative, rather than qualitative, in nature

Therefore, for the closed survey question “Do you like our general knowledge trivia?”, there are only two answer choices: either yes or no.

In what situations should open-ended questions be used?

There are very few contexts in which an open-ended question is not helpful. Whether in a job interview, work meeting, brainstorming, customer or product feedback survey, or simply in a friendly conversation, reviving the exchange with an open question is always a great idea! And there’s nothing better to question people and learn about what they really think about any particular subject.

The majority of customer satisfaction surveys use open-ended survey questions in combination with closed survey questions. The goal? To collect as much information as possible from survey respondents, gather new unexpected insights, and help bring perspective to the opinions given in the other closed survey questions.

Advantages of open-ended questions

Open questions offer significant advantages in terms of:

• The reliability of responses, which are free of influence or bias
• The spontaneity of responses, which can provide fresh, honest perspectives
• The freedom of respondents to provide as much or as little feedback as they want
• The dynamism of the exchange, encouraging a variety of responses to the arguments put forward
• The richness of the data and information that respondents can provide, with sometimes totally unexpected responses

So, why not take the plunge? Create your own open-ended questions and surveys with Wooclap!

When creating an event on Wooclap, select “New question”, then “Open question”. You can then start to personalize your question, add other questions step by step to make a survey, and provide any answers you want. The data can be displayed in the form of a list, a grid, or a word cloud.

Open-ended or closed questions: comparative examples

In the majority of cases, a closed question can be reformulated as an open-ended question to encourage better dialog, conversation, and exchange. Let’s take a look at some examples of closed questions and at how to transform them into good open-ended questions, more suitable for free and open discussion, and better survey insights.

Formulating effective open-ended questions: our guide

How to ask open-ended questions ? First and foremost, be sure to follow these 7 tips:

1. Ask simple questions: ask your respondents about one topic at a time! The shorter and more concise a question is, the more targeted it is, and the easier it is to understand and respond to, which increases the quality of the answers respondents provide.
2. Do not limit the answers: systematically check that your question cannot be answered simply with a “yes” or a “no”. Otherwise you will close your open question, and find you get the wrong response.
3. Avoid complicated, confusing or vague language: if your respondents don’t know how to answer the question, you will only get blanks responses back, and people won’t want to share their opinions with you.
4. Don’t make the text of your question too long: if the text of the question is too long, the user respondent will be less inclined to provide you with a long answer!
5. Do not lead the question: it is important to be neutral and not to influence the thinking of your respondents. Try to judge the weight and influence of each word, so as not to evoke in your respondents feelings of constraint. For example, the word “why” can sometimes have a negative connotation, and give an impression that you are challenging the respondent in some way.
6. Put yourself in the shoes of your respondent and ask yourself: “How would I answer this question if someone asked me?”
7. Avoid questions that are too personal: people may not appreciate you asking too many questions about their personal life or experience. So it’s best not to ask about their feelings in too much detail. The least you want to do is offend the end user of your survey, otherwise you will learn nothing about them.

20 open-ended question examples for different situations

Open-end questions for employees

1. What work goal are you most proud of having accomplished?
2. How would you describe your workload?
3. What would you like to see improved in our internal communications?
4. What kind of expectations do you have for the team over the next few months?
5. How could your working conditions be improved?

Discover more icebreaker questions for business meetings.

Open-ended questions for customers

1. Which service or product has been most useful for you recently?
2. Which brands managed to capture your attention during Black Friday?
3. How would you rate our customer service?
4. What frustrations have you experienced using our product or service?
5. How could we make the product or service better in meeting your expectations?

Create intuitive and dynamic customer satisfaction surveys and questionnaires with Wooclap!

Open-ended question examples for students

1. How would you rate the general quality of teaching?
2. In any, what unpleasant situations have you encountered this semester?
3. How would you divide the work up in a group project?
4. What experiences had the most impact on you this year?
5. How would you describe the atmosphere of the class?

Want to capture the attention of your students? Try Wooclap’s educational tools and discover all our quizzes for students, including live quizzes!

Open-ended questions in classes

1. How could we improve the instructions for this exercise?
2. What aspects of this issue do you think are the most important to take into account?
3. What do you think of the timetable this year?
4. How do you react in case of any disagreements with your classmates?
5. What issues would you like teachers to address better in class?

Sign up for Wooclap and stimulate your students’ learning, gather feedback and insights, and look after their well-being, even after class!