Module 4

The art of questions: open, probing, closed and leading, and how to sequence them

A lawyer’s main instrument is the question, and the form of a question largely decides the answer. ‘What happened?’ and ‘You were there, weren’t you?’ may concern the same event, but the first lets the person tell what they know, and the second supplies the answer. Research on interviews, in policing, in medicine and in the courtroom, has found the same pattern repeatedly: open questions bring out longer, more accurate accounts; closed questions give short answers and are best used to confirm or fill gaps; leading and suggestive questions raise the risk of agreement and contamination; and questions that ask several things at once lose most of them. Yet interviewers often begin with closed questions, because they feel efficient, and they lead without noticing. This module sets out the kinds of question, the evidence on what each does, the ‘funnel’ that moves from open to closed, how to plan a list of questions, and how to adapt to sensitive subjects, vulnerable interviewees and interpreters. It also deals with when leading questions are proper, which is mainly in cross-examination and in testing an account. The Question Type Analyzer in the labs classifies a list of questions and warns of the common faults. All the people are invented.

General education on listening and interviewing, using invented people, firms and events. It states psychological research in broad terms and is not a substitute for specialist training, and it is not legal advice. Rules on interviewing, contact with witnesses and represented persons, recording and the interviewing of suspects and vulnerable people differ between countries and change: check the rules that apply to you and take advice.