As part of an independent study task for the Situated Communication class the class had to read chapter 5 of Hargie, O (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication. Hargies’ main aim is to focus on the way in which questions are asked and also how questions are answered.  There are various key themes related to questioning and answering that continuously run throughout this chapter, some of which are; children, criminals, interview/recruitment and research.

Claims such as; it is how you ask the question and the words that are use that determine the answer received.  Loftus and Palmer (1974) claim that verbs can have an impact in questions, which can lead to later judgement.  This was found in a study carried out by Loftus and Palmer (1974) when subjects viewed a video of a car accident, the question ‘about how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other?’ was replaced by ‘hit’ ‘bumped’ or collided’.  By changing the verb when the subjects were asked ‘Did you see broken glass’ they replied yes, when actually there was no broken class at all.

Arguments found in the text would be ‘Recall Questions verses Process Questions’. It is thought that ‘Recall’ questions benefit teachers to know if the class understood a lesson and for the teacher to gain the knowledge of the extent of learning. ‘Process’ questions required more thought in order to answer thus giving the pupils opportunity to be expressive and creative which recall does not.

The area I would disagree with the most is where it states that the person asking the question has more control over the conversation. The reason i disagree with this is that it depends on who is answering the question as they maybe a strong responder resulting in the person asking the question to concentrate more on the response which may provide information that was not anticipated.

As I read through the text I looked further into the following two words; Acquiescence and Abhor. Using the Critical Dictionary of Education i was able to understand the specific area of the text.

The theory ‘ the effects of leading questions upon children’ is children may struggle with this type of question and answer style, as young children struggle to resist suggestion. In order to reduce errors children can be briefed to say ‘I don’t know’ if the question is proving to be too difficult.