Asking better question – part 1: Questions for gathering information
The purpose of questions
Broadly speaking, we can ask questions for two reasons:
- Gather information, seek truth, acquire knowledge, reduce confusion
- Guide thinking, stimulate creativity and idea generation, enable a person to discover answers for themselves
This post will focus on how to ask better questions for gathering information.
Information gathering outcomes
In 1956, Bloom created a taxonomy of educational objectives that educators have used ever since to specify learning outcomes. The taxonomy has six layers: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create. We’ll use the first three layers as the outcomes of information gathering questions.
So, asking better questions helps us remember, understand and/or apply the information we want to gather.
Types of questions
Interrogatives, also sometimes called the 5W1H (even though in the table below there are 6W’s because what and which about the same thing), specify what kind of subject the question is about
By choosing the right way of phrasing a question, which starts by understanding what we’re asking about, we can be more specific and provide greater clarity about the answer we’re expecting.
This gives us better questions that are more likely to provide the answer we need to help us remember, understand and/or apply the information we want to gather.
Characteristics of better questions
Better questions have certain characteristics that separate them from poor questions.
Better questions are:
- Clear – Not vague or uncertain about the subject they are asking about.
- Concise – They get to the point of the information they are trying to gather.
- Single-dimensional – Don’t mix interrogatives or ask multiple questions in one.
- Answerable – Don’t pose philosophical questions that can’t be answered in a way that meets the aim of providing information.
There are likely to be more characteristics that will come out of comparing the guiding thinking questions.
Putting all of this together, we can ask better questions that are clear, concise, single-dimensional and answerable, and which are more likely to provide the answer we need to help us remember, understand and/or apply the information we want to gather.
Next – Asking better question part 2: Questions for guiding thinking (and then maybe some kind of framework and context for asking better questions)