One of the articles I liked about the difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions was written by Susan Farrell (Farrell, 2016), who indicated that when doing a research, scientists usually ask questions before, during, and after research conduction. Depending on what they want to know, and how much they want to discover, the kind of questions and way of asking them will be adapted. For example, in usability studies or field studies, she advised asking open-ended questions; because typically, open-ended questions offer more and sometimes unexpected information that enrich the research experience later.
Farrell advice to use closed-ended questions in the following situations:
•When measuring time on task and error rates to compare results among users in usability studies
•When administering surveys for more than a thousand respondents
•When data should be measured over time, or repeated
•When the possible answers are known to be limited
•When enough qualitative research has been done, and excellent multiple-choice questions that cover most of the possibilities have been developed.
Farrell recommends using open-ended questions whenever possible; and even when closed-ended questions are used, an open-ended question at the end, such as, “What else would you like to say about that?” can be added.
References:
Farrell S. Open-ended vs. Closed-ended questions in user research. Research Methods. 2016. Online at: http://ift.tt/1qDj204 [Accessed 19/3/2018]
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