Open-ended questions is an important evaluation technique. It is employed in many fields like education, counselling, mediation, sales, investigative work, therapy and journalism . The oft repeated question on reality TV shows "How do you feel" is a classic example of unavoidable open-ended question.
In an earlier post we had discussed Constructed Questions which may be considered as a special case of open ended questions.
Multiple choice questions are closed-ended questions that expect a short or single-word answer. As opposed to this, an open-ended question elicits a comprehensive answer forcing the student to delve deep into his/her own knowledge bank and express himself/herself fully.
"What's the make of the pen you are using?" is a typical closed ended question. A corresponding open ended question could be, "Isn't that an interesting pen ?"
Open-ended questions are intended to be less leading than closed-ended questions. This makes both answering and evaluating them a matter of some expertise. This page explains how open-ended questions can be used by maths teachers. An interesting paper can be found here, which illustrates the creative and graphic use of open-ended questions for basic maths.
Open-ended questions play an important role in evaluating students. "To measure how well a student performs, teachers have to be able to examine the process, not just the final product." Open-ended questions make students construct their own responses and the answers they give reflect their thinking and understanding.
Sadly, in an attempt to make school education more accommodating, open-ended questions are getting neglected thereby potentially stunting the expressive abilities of students' minds in their formative stages.
