A concept that I found interesting in chapter 13 was a
leading question. According to our
book a Leading question is defined as, “ a question that indicated a preferred
response”. Some example of these questions could be “ Don’t you think that red
is a better color for a wall?” The reason that these questions should be
avoided is because the answer could end up in a biased opinion. Once these
questions are asked on a survey, people will most likely end up answering
according to the preferred response, thus making it a biased response. I one
took a research class in which we had to conduct questionnaires and had
participants fill them out. The teacher would doc off points for anyone who had
a leading question because then the results would not longer be accurate
because of the biased answers. I think that in order to have a good questionnaire
that participants should be able to answer the way they would want to answer
and not be influenced by a leading question.
Hi Jaxfavy,
ReplyDeleteI, too, found this idea to be quite interesting -particularly in the context of the court room (or really any forum for convincing), and how leading questions can be used to sway a jury's opinion. Certainly, you noted this "biased opinion" factor as a potential problem in using leading questions on surveys, etc. Additionally, I agree that the use of leading questions may be inappropriate in almost all contexts of research, considering the biased information and responses gathered. It seems that they may be most useful in terms of persuasion, or manipulating an individual for information.
All in all, great post. I really enjoyed it!
-TyroneQ
Hi Jaxfavy,
ReplyDeleteIts funny how people can be manipulated into a biased answer by the use of a leading question. I think back on some of the surveys that i have had to do for classes and I wonder if i have ever used leading questions without realizing it because i was hopeful for a certain answer. I know i wanted to do a project on groups and how they wor together, but we had to conduct a survey to find the need of the students. Some of our questions were about group work, because thats initailly what we wanted to do our project on, but after the survey we found there was more need in presentation skills so thats what our project topic became. So i guess if i did use leading question that time they didnt work in my favor.