Q&A is one of the simplest techniques of carrying out an interview on a target audience. It involves direct interview questions from the interviewer and the interviewee’s response in written form. Q&A is easy to read and to-the-point structure, they’re mostly considered open-ended questions.
The question gives room for a detailed explanation. Take a look at the pros and cons of using questions that call for an open-ended response.
Pros:
1. A sense of direction: The open-ended responses provide you with a clear sense of direction based on a particular topic. The questions are to-the-point and the responses given can be used for analysis.
2. Effective: Q&A can be effective if the right questions are asked and suitable responses are given. They are great for building the credibility of the information collected.
3. Gives qualitative data: Interviewers or researchers can collect, analyze and interpret data that can be used to develop a hypothesis of the subject under investigation. Answers given can evaluate the respondent’s behavior and attitude.
4. The basis for actual results: They provide you with the basis for actual results on a specific topic. With direct questions, respondents can give accurate data for solving a particular problem.
5. Collect more details: The open-ended responses provide you with more information, giving you more useful and contextual feedback.
6. Understand the respondent: It gives you an opportunity to understand how the respondent thinks and you can easily evaluate their feelings and opinions in the answers provided adding more value to collected data.
7. Secondary analysis: Other researchers can use responses given for secondary analysis because they allow obtaining of extra information.
8. Sharing the knowledge: Q&A focuses on creating a positive learning and sharing of experience. As people go through the Q&A, they can understand and learn more from the respondent’s views.
9. Encourages the flow of information: Q&As are structured in such a way to encourage others to support the flow of thoughts and feelings of the respondent.
10. Open expression: They give a respondent an opportunity to express himself or herself in an open and honest manner. It improves the critical thinking of individuals.
Cons:
1. Limited control over the length of response: The interviews have limited control over the length of the response. They only construct the question and leave it to the respondent to give their own opinions.
2. No immediate clarification: If Q&A are used to collect data for research, the researcher may not seek clarification on the response given and this may affect the analysis of data.
3. Time-consuming: It takes time formulating the right questions and collecting answers from the respondents.
4. Structure of questions: There is a danger in the structure of questions and responses given. Some of them may be too simple while others too complicated making the answers differ in scope and level of details.
5. Literal responses: Sometimes the questions and answers can be difficult to understand especially if the respondent is not familiar with how to express his opinions or views.
6. Subjective: The answers given in open-ended responses give you the opinion and feeling of the respondent making them subjective.
7. Limited question: Sometimes you may have a few numbers of questions based on a specific topic making it impossible to get all the information on that topic.
8. Biased answers: Sometimes the respondents may be biased and give responses for the sake of answering without prior thinking on the question.
9. Analyzing the responses: Various tools used in analyzing data may not provide the same depth of accuracy affecting the responses given.
