Single and Multiple Questions

In an interview a single question is a question that only contains one question. Whereas multiple questions are questions that contain more than one question. An example of a single question would be: Whats your name? However you can find more information about the person by using a multiple question and saying: What is your name and how old are you? Therefore as you can see you can find out slightly more in a  quicker way by using a multiple question rather than a single question. However single questions are still really useful for just finding out one thing. Also successful multiple questions are always related to the theme of the interview therefore it will not confuse the audience in any way and by using multiple questions you expect a nice long complex answer from them therefore you gain a lot of relevant information s the interviewer that you are looking to get out of the interviewee.

Open Questions

Open questions are questions that result in having a long answer. If the interviewer was to ask the interviewee an open question then the interviewee would respond with a longer answer than a closed question. Instead of the interview being controlled by the interviewer like closed questions are when asking an open question the  control is passed over to the interviewee as they will respond in a way where they reflect on the question and tell the interviewer their thoughts and feelings on the question being asked. the positives of having open question is that the interviewee can give up juicy information that the interviewer has not anticipated therefore it entertains the audience a lot more whereas the negatives of using open questions as that it can run the interview over as there is no time limit therefore unlike closed questions the interviewer is in less control of the interview itself.

Really good interviews will have a nice combination of both open and closed questions to give the audience a range of different answers.

As you can see Jonathan Ross has a combination of open and closed questions which makes the interview interesting for the audience and you can see that he also uses them in different situations like as ice breakers and to keep control of the interview yet uses the open questions to get in depth answers.

Interview Techniques

When interviewing a person there are many techniques you can use for example there are instances where you will ask closed questions, open questions, single questions, multiple questions, direct questioning, indirect questioning and suggestive questioning. Each of these techniques result in the interviewee responding in a different way for each question.

What is an interview?

An interview is essentially a conversation between two people. One person is the interviewer and asks the questions to the other person the interviewee who is responding to the questions being asked. There are many techniques that can be used when interviewing a person so that you get the best possible answer that you want out of the interview. There are also many other styles and structuring to an interview that you have to take into consideration so that your interview is the best it possibly can be.