I feel the aim of chapter 5 is to highlight the importance of questioning, the many ways of questioning and the effects questions can have on situations. Hargie suggests that questions are vital for communication and the many variations of questions for desired or undesired answers.
The main themes I noticed were the importance of questioning. There is a stereotype that asking questions suggests a person is more affluent or powerful. Hargie uses examples of professions where asking questons is an important part of the job, such as lawyers, teachers and doctors to stress the importance of questioning and that there is an imbalance between the questioner and interviee.
Hargie continues this idea of imbalance and draws attention to the fact that children growing ask lots of questions to understand the world around them and develop their general knowledge however within the classroom setting fewer questions are asked by children. With help of other sources, Hargie suggets that a possible reason for this is that judgment or ridicule from classmates or intimidation that questions may be deemed stupid by the teachers.
Hargie continues to dicuss the different types of questioning, particularly open and closed questions and how the answers given can either be beneficial or limited depending on how the question was asked. Other questions such as leading questions, for example, what is the time? are “assumption laden” (Hargie, 2011) which the respondent has been lead to the answer compared with process questions such as “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” invloves more justification, analysis or opinions.
I agree with most of the chapter particularly within the classroom where children ask less questions. Within my uni class the is little interaction perhaps for fear of being ridiculed or embarassed.
