Questioning Skills
Questioning Skills Overview
Questioning is an art, and it goes without saying that if you ask the right questions, you will most likely get the right answers. On the other hand, questioning is also considered as a skill because while everybody asks questions all the time, there are people who simply do not know how to be good at it.
There are many types of questions that you can use and they serve different purposes. They can be used to make a sale, obtain an answer, elicit information, and even to influence others. You may not realize it, but knowing how and when to ask questions can truly make a big difference in your interactions with other people.
Training Objectives
In this section, you will learn more about Questioning Skills and by the end of this self-paced training, you will be able to:
Distinguish the different types of questions Know how to improve your questioning skills
Learn how to ask powerful questions
Know the techniques and strategies used in asking questions
Learn about the techniques used in asking behavioral, sales, and even polygraph questions
Find out about questions that don’t have answers
Target Audience
Questioning Skills training guide is designed to help professionals from various career fields. It can be of great help to those in the field of recruitment, human resource, and sales. Those with a career in journalism, education, management, law, medicine, politics, and law enforcement can also benefit greatly from this guide.
A curious person asks a lot of questions. They say that an inquisitive individual doubles the chances of acquiring new and increasing knowledge about many things because the person does not stop asking questions. We all have a questioning attitude even at an early age. Kids seem to have an endless list of questions in their minds about the many wonders that astonish them. They would probably ask what rain is and once you start to give an answer, they will not stop throwing you the “why’s” of everything that happens around them. As a person grows older and matures,…
December 21, 2009
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Did you ever wonder why we ask questions? We ask questions if we want to find out something that is not known and even with the things that we already have knowledge of. Even little kids ask questions out of curiosity over the many amazing things they see and experience around them. Questions provide answers to our curious minds, things that need reasoning, things we do not understand, and discovery of something new. Questions make us reflect on the way we deal with life and promote a better understanding of why things happen the way they should be. In the…
December 21, 2009
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In any type of conversation, asking questions is a crucial part of it. Effective communication does not just require active listening but also the ability to ask the right, relevant questions. We ask different kinds of questions to the people we talk to. When seeking for more information, we ask open ended questions. These questions are asked to encourage the speaker to talk more about the topic or anything that interests the speaker. Using open-ended questions should be done frequently in a conversation as it makes us “tell our own stories.” The skill of asking questions, particularly open-ended questions, is…
December 22, 2009
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Questions may be of various forms and purposes but they generally fall into two main types: open ended questions and closed ended questions. Open ended questions are meant to gather more information through elaboration and explanation. Closed ended questions, on the other hand, are asked to verify and confirm, usually eliciting only simple and specific answers. The focus of this article is on the concept of asking closed ended questions and the manner of asking such type of question. We ask questions at any point in our conversation with other people but not all of us are aware of the…
December 23, 2009
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Asking the right question is very important in order to get the right information and in achieving the purpose of asking questions. When you formulate and ask your questions appropriately, you are able to understand easily, and if comprehension is not fully achieved, you are able to ask more questions that would dig deep into the information. An individual who is able to progress the manner of questioning from easy to moderate to creative level is at the same time developing cognitive growth. This concept was studied and introduced many years ago by an education professor at the University of…
December 24, 2009
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We know the fact that asking questions is very critical, yet this reality is often misunderstood and disregarded. It is perfectly normal to be inquisitive. In fact, this behavior even helps a person in learning the things that should be grasped. It also makes us understand why we do the things we do everyday and lead us to knowing what is right and what is wrong. However, questions have to be well-constructed and asked properly. Whenever our questions are weak and poorly created, the chances of getting the information that we want are slim since the questions may be left…
December 25, 2009
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One of the most effective tools in communication is the ability to ask questions. Being able to ask effective questions is a skill we must acquire. Skillful questioning is one of the key ingredients of solid and successful relationships, strategic planning, and significant exchange of information and opinions. Questions that are poorly constructed and weak can lead to a poor communication exchange and may cause misunderstanding. Skillful questioning techniques are considered the foundation for powerful questions. With powerful questions, we are able to dig deep into a confusing issue and find out more information, we can compare our personal viewpoints…
December 26, 2009
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It is human nature to ask questions. We all do so, and this inclination usually starts during our childhood days, and continues until maturity and even up to the last moments of our lives. Just imagine if we all live each day without asking questions. There will be chaos and misunderstandings and we would all be endlessly searching for answers to the things that we want to know. It is not enough to simply ask questions for the sake of asking. Maybe when we were kids, we are spared of making sure that our questions are well-constructed. But as we…
December 27, 2009
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Too often people ask us a lot of questions and some of these may be complicated or not properly structured so we need to repeat back what was asked in order to verify if that is what the person meant. We call this process paraphrasing. The term simply means repeating another person’s ideas in your own understanding but retaining the thought of the statement or question. Simple as it may seem, not everyone applies paraphrasing in all of their conversations. It is a useful technique to help you unlock the real meaning of the statement or question. Most of the…
December 28, 2009
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Conducting research is one of the essentials tools used by many organizations as an accurate and precise method of gathering data. The research team must identify what they want from the research or how they want it to be conducted. Failed researches are brought about by the inaccurate use of the research method. A very common method used by most researchers in the collection of data is through the use of questionnaires. Choosing the Type of Questionnaire to Use After deciding to use a questionnaire as the method to conduct research, the next thing to decide on is which type…
December 29, 2009
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In the language of computers, if you key in the wrong information or data, you would get the wrong information out. This same premise is true for the aspect of communication as well. You gather wrong answers from wrong questions. So, how do you make it a point to elicit the correct responses with the proper information from others? The answer is simply to ask the right kind of questions. We say that questioning is one of the major tools in communication but asking the right questions is the ingredient of effective communication. Apart from this skill, we can develop…
December 30, 2009
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Critical thinking is a very important aspect in every individual. Questioning techniques were designed to develop our cognitive skill. Questions are as good as the responses provided so it is better to sharpen our questioning skills. Our level of thinking is not so much sharpened when the questions asked are more on factual recall or stock knowledge. We get to hone our cognitive aspect through higher level questions that require more than basic knowledge-level responses. Questions must be constructed in a way that triggers evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of facts and information. Higher level cognitive questions usually start with words…
December 31, 2009
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In learning the art of asking questions, you will discover that questions do not only vary in structure but also in motive or intention. There are questions that simply seek for information while some questions are meant to clarify or verify unclear concepts. There are also questions that will motivate a person to act and bring about change either in the perception or in actions. Because questions vary, you even hear people ask you irrelevant and unnecessary questions but still these are considered questions. Although we say that asking questions is good because it stimulates thinking and arouses curiosity, not…
Strategic questioning is a special type of asking questions that creates a difference and brings about change in the personal and social aspects. It lets individuals explore their own tactics and techniques in going about the change. You can also use strategic questioning to help other people come up with their own solutions to any issues or problems. In a larger scope, strategic questioning develops or creates new information instead of communicating what is already known and the person sharing new information has ownership of it. It generates active participation and creates strength for change. Since it encourages change, strategic…
The essence of asking questions is very true in the field of sales. Through questioning, a company will find out how a particular product or service can be advantageous or beneficial to a customer. It also gives entrepreneurs an idea of how the sale can be improved and developed. Proper questioning in sales helps build rapport with customers because the art of selling is all about creating a good relationship between clients and customers. When you know how to entertain your customers with good questioning skills, they are more likely to purchase from you or sign up for your service….
Polygraph testing is very much like psychological examinations. A polygraph exam is conducted using a series of tests which are designed to evaluate the truthfulness and deception or fallacies in various situations and aspects. Companies may use it to screen job candidates but more commonly, it is used to investigate criminal incidents. This kind of examination uses different polygraph tests and questioning techniques which we will learn in this article. Types of Polygraph Questioning The major tool of any polygraph examination is the measure of a person’s responses to a set of questions. The various polygraph techniques or tests differ…
Interview preparation involves many factors to consider. One of which is the preparation of responses to the questions that will be asked where the meat of the interview process is based on. An interview is basically a question and answer portion between two individuals. When seeking for a job, applicants initially go through interviews during the hiring process. As part of the groundwork, jobseekers must learn the kind of questioning style that interviewers usually apply in order to excel and surpass the interview stage. Traditional interview questions have long been the usual types of questions that simply require straight answers…
Our minds sometimes amaze us because of its ability to think of things beyond rational and logical thinking. This is why humans are known to be the most valuable creatures on earth because we have a level of cognition that is comparably different from the rest. We have the ability to question the things that are happening around us. More than that, we go beyond plain asking and would even come up with questions that seem illogical and unanswerable. Children are the perfect example of those who tend to ask out-of-this world questions. Notice that they would suddenly ask something…
