The Open questions are those that allow the respondent to make the answer from the argumentation, either in his own words, or in terms of the theory that is being asked of him. Although in this second case in a way we can say that the person responds with their own words, but using a formal language and based on the theory.
Open questions are a evaluation method that allows to account for the knowledge that one has of a subject, but in addition, it gives an account of the level of appropriation that the person has regarding the topic that is being worked on, especially in the linguistic and discursive field.
Open questions follow a fairly simple method, the evaluated person is presented with a specific question on a topic or topics, this question must be answered in an argumentative way by the subject who must display the knowledge he has in this regard.
Normally, in this type of question, the evaluated person is asked to be concise, that is, try not to extend too much in his answer, or, on the other hand, it may be that the person is asked to give a broad and fully argued answer, in this case it does not matter how much the person extends.
This response parameter can also be delimited, providing a marked space to write the answer and specifying to the evaluated that they can only use the indicated space in the test for the answers.
The methodology of open questions presents, on the one hand, the advantage of being tests that allow the evaluator to know first-hand the level of appropriation that a student has of a certain topic, in addition to observing skills related to the subject. both structured and technical language.
On the other hand, when applying this type of question, there is the relative disadvantage of requiring a large amount of time to review the answers. This, taking into account that each evaluated will give their own answer in different language and different construction of the answer, regardless of whether the question is the same.
In addition, you may face real challenges regarding calligraphy and spelling that can be found in each different answer..
In this sense and in contrast, closed questions present the ease of tabulating information almost automatically, thanks to answer sheet systems. In addition, since they are unique answers, the subjective factor of the interpretation present in the open questions does not enter.
It is necessary to clarify that the tests that use open questions usually occur in academic environments of student assessment, normally in research processes the use of open questions is avoided or limited.
The above is because, this type of question in the middle of a investigative process can dramatically increase logging and analysis times. This can be quite inconvenient, if the sample size is very large since the responses of each of them should be analyzed..
On the other hand, assessing subjective responses in a research process is usually quite complex, in research there are ways to do it, but they are highly exhausting. But we are not saying that open questions are good or bad, only that there are different possible applications and that some of them will be more productive than others. For example, in the experience appraisal, open questions work great.
If you use open-ended questions in a service survey for example, you can see first-hand the people's opinion and perception as for your local or company. If you think about it, it would be quite difficult to get to certain aspects or answers if you simply gave a closed question with only a few answer possibilities.
Although it is important to note that the combination of the two types of question, that is, between open and closed questions, can be quite beneficial to clarify answers or to open the possibility between the answers given and any answer that has been left out.
Another way to combine these two types of question, is for example to ask that a system be described by mentioning at least 3 of its elements (or more in the case that it is more complex) in this sense, for example, you could ask yourself, "Describe the eye by mentioning at least 3 of its parts" In this way, the open response can show us the general knowledge and the closed one the specific one with respect to the topic and its components..
For the above you can for example make a question with three answer options and in the fourth, include the option "Others" leaving a blank space for the person to include in this the possible answers that have been left out when designing the test or survey..
summarizing
In summary, open questions provide us with a greater range of response in which aspects that perhaps were not even foreseen before carrying out the survey and receiving the answers can be evidenced..
On the other hand, the analysis and classification of the open answers can be quite time consuming and exhausting, and on the other hand, if they are answers to which a result or grade must be assigned, it can be quite subjective and difficult to clearly establish the criteria in some cases.
Despite this, the use of open questions in research contexts is increasingly being used thanks to the broad contribution that this type of response can provide when conducting ethnographic research. Although, in this sense, there are many who affirm that this type of procedure moves the investigation a little away from the contextual framework of the scientific method, since, like it or not, it alters the process, introducing the subjectivity that makes open responses possible..
Now you know what are open questions and how do they work both in academic fields and in research, in addition to the pros and cons pointed out by the experts regarding them.
It is possible to create all kinds of open questions, but in any case try to limit the response space or time so that you do not lose the north of time in the process and end up spending more time than necessary to establish an answer or answers.
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