Q&A is one of the simplest techniques of carrying out an interview on a target audience. It involves direct interview questions from the interviewer and the interviewee’s response in written form. Q&A is easy to read and to-the-point structure, they’re mostly considered open-ended questions.
The question gives room for a detailed explanation. Take a look at the pros and cons of using questions that call for an open-ended response.
Pros:
**1. A sense of direction: **The open-ended responses provide you with a clear sense of direction based on a particular topic. The questions are to-the-point and the responses given can be used for analysis.
**2. Effective: **Q&A can be effective if the right questions are asked and suitable responses are given. They are great for building the credibility of the information collected.
**3. Gives qualitative data: Interviewers or researchers can collect, analyze and interpret data that can be used to develop a hypothesis of the subject under investigation. Answers given can evaluate the respondent’s behavior and attitude. **
**4. The basis for actual results: They provide you with the basis for actual results on a specific topic. With direct questions, respondents can give accurate data for solving a particular problem. **
**5. Collect more details: The open-ended responses provide you with more information, giving you more useful and contextual feedback. **
6. Understand the respondent: It gives you an opportunity to understand how the respondent thinks and you can easily evaluate their feelings and opinions in the answers provided adding more value to collected data.** **
**7. Secondary analysis: Other researchers can use responses given for secondary analysis because they allow obtaining of extra information. **
**8. Sharing the knowledge: Q&A focuses on creating a positive learning and sharing of experience. As people go through the Q&A, they can understand and learn more from the respondent’s views. **
**9. Encourages the flow of information: Q&As are structured in such a way to encourage others to support the flow of thoughts and feelings of the respondent. **
10. Open expression: They give a respondent an opportunity to express himself or herself in an open and honest manner. It improves the critical thinking of individuals.** **
Cons:
**1. Limited control over the length of response: The interviews have limited control over the length of the response. They only construct the question and leave it to the respondent to give their own opinions. **
2. No immediate clarification: If Q&A are used to collect data for research, the researcher may not seek clarification on the response given and this may affect the analysis of data.** **
**3. Time-consuming: **It takes time formulating the right questions and collecting answers from the respondents.
**4. Structure of questions: There is a danger in the structure of questions and responses given. Some of them may be too simple while others too complicated making the answers differ in scope and level of details. **
**5. Literal responses: **Sometimes the questions and answers can be difficult to understand especially if the respondent is not familiar with how to express his opinions or views.
**6. Subjective: **The answers given in open-ended responses give you the opinion and feeling of the respondent making them subjective.
**7. Limited question: **Sometimes you may have a few numbers of questions based on a specific topic making it impossible to get all the information on that topic.
**8. Biased answers: **Sometimes the respondents may be biased and give responses for the sake of answering without prior thinking on the question.
**9. Analyzing the responses: Various tools used in analyzing data may not provide the same depth of accuracy affecting the responses given. **