Asking Great Questions

This material is adapted from a larger, highly recommended research training course, Breakthrough. See www.gmi.org for details.

Introduction

When you ask questions to staff and others in order to get accurate readings of situations so you can formulate plans or deal with problems, you probably do not call it “research” or write up your findings as a “research paper”. A course in research methods would be overkill for your information needs. But you know that the better you are at asking questions, the quicker you can find out what you need to know in order to get on with the rest of your work effectively. For that to happen, you need to:

Ask the right questions
to the right number of the right people
using the right approach in the right setting
in order to get fresh insight
leading toward creative recommendations and actions
according to God’s will and for his glory. (cf. Phil. 1:9-11)

In routine information gathering, such as among people who work together, most of these criteria for valid research take care of themselves through common sense, but formulating the right questions does not. That is everybody’s everyday problem. Following are some excerpts from the Breakthrough research manual that may simplify the problem.

The right questions

Your aim is to get beyond bland, mediocre, or even good questions and get into great questions that will tell you what you really want to know. They have six characteristics, which give the acronym “T.E.A.C.U.P.”:

1. Tolerable (not too threatening)
2. Essentially linked to your main research question
3. Answerable by the respondent
4. Clear to the respondent
5. Unbiased
6. Penetrating

These criteria operate like links in a chain. If any link breaks, the chain breaks.

1. Tolerable

An interview is much more stressful for the respondent than the interviewer, especially when the interviewer is the boss. Reduce that stress. Though you may have to ask some questions that are a bit threatening, try to keep the threat to a tolerable level. The more relaxed your respondents are, the better your chances to get the kind of insight you are hoping and praying for.
Unless absolutely necessary, avoid the “Big 3” threatening topics—money, sexual behavior, conflict. Avoid any other questions that may embarrass respondents or cause them to embarrass anyone else. If such questions must be asked at all, do it in the most delicate way possible and as late in the interview as possible, but not at the very end, as if you have at last revealed your “real” question.

1A. Embarrassing the respondent. Don’t get your respondents thinking, “I should know the answer to this question but I don’t. How can I disguise my ignorance?” Be careful about asking, “What is the most helpful book or article you have read lately?” unless you are sure the person is a reader. Do not assume that a question that would not embarrass you could not embarrass someone else. Even basic factual questions about people’s educational level or specific Bible knowledge may embarrass them.

1B. Causing the respondent to embarrass someone else. Avoid questions that would require respondents to lie in order to protect someone else’s reputation or to protect themselves in case you ever leak their answers. Watch for signs of nervousness and move on if you sense this problem.

1C. The “Big 3.” If a researcher asks ten church treasurers, “How much of the church’s money have you used personally in the last year?” the answers may not be very reliable. Though no researcher will be that foolish, many researchers do fail to realize how threatening some of their questions may be and how the threat level will affect people’s answers.

2. Essentially linked to the main question

2A. Choosing your main question.

You are asking questions in order to get new insight into your situation, leading toward new strategies and actions in your ministry that will bring you new or increased impact. Use the worksheet to begin identifying the matter of prayer or praise your questions will focus on.

2B. Breaking your main “insight question” into small questions.

A common temptation in questioning is to ask people your main question directly. For example, “What causes such and such?” It is often too general or too complex for them to give you insightful replies. A better approach is to ask other smaller questions that throw light on your big question, whether or not you ever ask the big question itself. Breaking your big question into powerful small questions is your challenge. The remaining four characteristics of questions will help you get started.

As you begin writing the questions you will ask other people, always ask yourself, “If my respondents answer this question the way I think they will, how much insight will that give me about my main question?” That will keep you from drifting into interesting but non-essential matters.

3. Answerable by the respondent

The questions need to be within the respondent’s sphere of knowledge or experience and phrased in ways that fit the respondent’s normal thought pattern. Otherwise the respondent will be intimidated and/or confused, and little insight will come.

3A. Within the respondent’s sphere of knowledge or experience. If the question requires a complicated analysis or large creative leap, it may not be answerable. For example, “Why are people in this community poor?” “What would you do if you were president?” or, “What do you think we should do about this issue I am researching?” An executive cannot ask questions of ordinary staff that would require them to take an executive’s perspective on their own situations. This does not mean they have nothing valuable to contribute. It only means that the executive will not discover their value if he or she asks questions in unanswerable ways.

3B. Within the respondent’s normal thought pattern. If a question is framed in a way the respondent does not normally think, it may not be answerable. For example, the question, “What is your favorite book of the Bible?” assumes that the respondent is used both to ranking things as “favorites” (not true in many cultures) and thinking of the books of the Bible as units (not true for most people who have no formal Bible training).

4. Clear to the respondent

It is easy to write questions that are clear to the writer, but the real test is whether or not they are clear to the respondents. Many questioners do not take this too seriously since they know that in an interview situation, they can always adjust and clarify questions on the fly. That helps in some cases but it is far from foolproof, and if it fails, the questioner may draw totally unreliable conclusions.

The big risk occurs when the respondent seems to understand the question and the questioner sees no need to clarify it. It is still possible that the respondent heard the question very differently than the questioner intended and assumed.

4A. The question, “Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit?” assumes that the respondent understands “being filled with the Holy Spirit” the same way the questioner does. However, one may think this is always accompanied by the gift of tongues and the other may not.

4B. The question, “Was your church founded by an African or a missionary?” is a terrible question in Africa. In the first place, it assumes that an African cannot be a missionary. It does not say whether “church” means a local congregation, a national church, or a denominational family (such as Methodist). It does not say whether “founded” means when a person started preaching, a congregation started meeting or a legal registration was established. This question is not clear to either the researcher or the respondent if they think about it, and yet it looks so simple that each person will assume he/she knows what it means.

5. Unbiased

Some of the best insights come from the most unexpected responses so questions must be constructed in a way that gives people freedom. Questions must not limit the possible answers too much, they must not imply that the questioner is looking for a particular answer, and they must not make assumptions the respondent does not share.

5A. Limiting the answers. The classic biased question is, “Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?” There are other more subtle ways to make the same mistake, so always include a “not sure,” or, “other, please explain,” option as a way out on a multiple-choice question. Also beware of the word “or.” “Should evangelism in this city start with an approach to high caste Hindus or outcastes?” The question writer was biased toward the view that it will be one or the other. It could be both, neither (there are many castes between these two levels), or one of these and one or more of the intermediate castes.

5B. Exposing the desired answer. “You agree that healing is important in the church, don’t you?” Many respondents will be looking for any hint of bias in the question because they believe their role is to please the questioner, especially if he or she is senior in any way to them.

5C. Wrong assumptions. This question was mentioned above: “Why is unity such a serious problem in our church?” This assumes that unity is a problem and your respondent agrees it is. This might be a safe and necessary assumption. On the other hand, if your respondent never thought of it before you asked your question, he/she will probably make up some artificial answer in order to pretend to go along with your bias. Artificial answers are worse than useless to you.

6. Penetrating

This is closely related to two of the previous criteria (“essential” and “clear”) yet slightly different. You want meaty, clever, insightful questions, not bland, superficial ones. Get your respondents to choose, to imagine, to tell you their stories, perhaps to think deeply (but not too deeply). The template for questions [link at the end of the six characteristics] provides some specific models and suggestions for structuring questions in more penetrating ways.

If you ask 40 church members an obvious question like, “Why is unity such a serious problem in our church?” you make it easy for them to give a generic answer like, “Other people are so suspicious of me, and they don’t have any reason to be.” This does not take you far toward a breakthrough because you already knew that suspicion was a big problem.

Upgrade the question to something like, “Do you think the disunity in our church comes mostly from reason a, b, c or something else?” or “How likely do you think it is that this congregation will still be together and united in five years? Why do you think so?”

Tips on breaking your central question into a few interview questions

1. Suggested prayer: Lord Jesus, master of the art of asking questions, please help me as I start writing my questions. Grace me with some of your wisdom. Be glorified in this process.

2. Decide whether your small questions will mostly be about people’s BEHAVIOUR, VIEWS/THOUGHTS, or MOTIVES.

• Behaviour is easiest to research but the hardest to get insights from. Views and thoughts are of medium difficulty to research and to draw insights from. Motives are hardest to research but easiest to get insights from if the research is valid.

3. Develop questions around someone else’s theory

• Suppose you were trying to figure out what motivates change among people in the particular social group you minister to. You found a general theory of social change that claims the four key components are A, B, C, and D. You could organize your small questions to explore these components one at a time or you could ask which one the members of this social group consider most important to them.

4. Use a very broad question to relax people as you start out.

• I am doing research on such and such. How familiar are you with that situation (or project, issue, etc.) and how comfortable are you in talking to me about it?
• What is the first thing you think of when I say . . . ?
• What are one or two words that sum up your feelings about . . . ?

5. Describe hypothetical or ambiguous situations and ask their view.

• “Out of 10 people who . . . , how many do you think would . . .”
• “Suppose you are at a meeting of your congregation (or your community or your organization). Someone makes the following proposal . . . How do you think most people will respond to that?” or, “What would you say to the meeting?”
• “Some people say . . . Other people say . . . How do you feel about those opinions? Is one any better than the other?” (Or, “Which opinion do you think most of your friends have on that subject? Why do they see it that way?”)

6. Follow up on something the person says.

• After a simple opening question like, “Have you ever . . .” or “When did you. . .” follow up with, “Tell me about it,” “Explain it to me,” or “You mentioned such and such. Can you say a little more about that?”
• After an agree-disagree question, usually with 3-5 response options, ask, “Why did you answer in that way?” or “May I ask why you think so?”
• After they tell you a story and give you their view on something, ask, “At what point in that story did you first realize that . . .” or “At what point did you start to feel the way you do now about . . .?”

7. Play dumb. (Actually it isn’t always playing.)

• After you explain something you are undecided about, ask, “Can you help me understand this?” or, “I am getting the impression from people’s answers to this question that they think . . . Is that the right impression or am I missing something? Can you help me?” (This works well if you are seen as an outsider by the people you are talking to.)
• I am trying to figure out why . . . [your big question], but maybe I am making it all too difficult. Do you think there is an obvious answer to my question? What is really going on here? Can you help me get to the bottom of this issue?