Question

What are the strengths of open ended interviews compared to closed needed self completion questionnaires?

Answer 1

• Postal or self-complete questionnaires – are when the participant picks up or is sent a questionnaire which they fill out themselves and return by post or via the internet.
• The researcher has no control over who fills in the questionnaire, or whether any attempt is made to answer questions accurately as opposed to ticking boxes at random. Anyone at the mailing address may have picked the form up and filled it in. This potentially makes it more difficult for the researcher to get a true impression of a particular age group or gender.
• Open-ended questions allow respondents to include more information, including feelings, attitudes and understanding of the subject. This allows researchers to better access the respondents' true feelings on an issue.
• Open-ended questions require careful thought in crafting a response on the fly. Regardless of the number of times a candidate rehearses her interview responses, there is no way to anticipate every question a recruiter or hiring manager will ask.
• Therefore, the open-ended questions posed during an interview help the interviewer judge how well the candidate thinks on her feet and how quickly she can pull her thoughts together to form a well-constructed answer.
• When a recruiter asks an open-ended questions such as, "Tell me about a time when you had to address performance deficiencies with a long-term employee whose previous performance had been stellar," it provides an opportunity to judge whether the candidate will make a good supervisor or manager.