Tag Archives: effective questions

Questions for Responding to Participants when Facilitating a Training Session

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One of the most important skills that any learning facilitator must have is the ability to manage groups with questions. Whether it’s a training or group development session that you are running, you must be able to ask questions that help you to manage the group appropriately. You should also be able to ask questions that challenge your participants to think.

In The Secrets of Facilitation, Michael Wilkinson presents us with some questions which are useful for responding to participants. The questions are:

  • Direct probe question
  • Playback question
  • Indirect probe question
  • Leading question
  • Redirection question
  • Prompt question

Let’s explore each of them.

Direct Probe Question

The direct probe question can be used to challenge the perception of a participant. Let’s say a participant challenges something you said, you can respond to them with a direct probe question. Here’s an example:

  • Participant: I don’t believe that is correct.
  • Direct probe question (from facilitator): Okay, what’s your reason for saying it isn’t correct?

This question is a direct probe to the participant to help you understand why they feel what you said is not correct.

Playback question

Use this type of question to check that you understand what the participant is saying. It is a question you can use to clarify that you understand correctly what someone said.

  • Participant: There are only two types of feedback and not three.
  • Playback question (from facilitator): So your view is that there are only two types of feedback and not three. Is that correct?

This question helps you to make sure that you understand the participant correctly.

Indirect probe question

Use this question to get the participant to clarify something they said instead of you clarifying it. Here’s an example:

  • Participant: There are only two types of feedback and not three.
  • Indirect probe question (from facilitator): So, what you are saying is…?

With this question you allow the participant to clarify what they said earlier.

Leading question

Leading questions have a bad reputation and we are usually told not to use them. But when facilitating groups and you are trying to get information out of them when they are clearly overlooking information in specific areas then you may use a leading question to prompt them to think of that area.

  • Participant(s): The different types of leadership styles are situational, visionary, and authoritative.
  • Leading question (from facilitator): Are there any leadership styles related to emotional intelligence?

Leading questions can be used to prompt participants to think of solutions and ideas in areas they may have overlooked.

Redirection question

Use this question type to get a conversation or the session back on track. This I believe is a very important question because sessions can get off track and may need to be brought back to focus especially when people start talking about things that are not relevant to the session

  • A participant raises an issue not relevant to the current discussion.

Redirection question (from facilitator): That’s an important perspective, can we note it down? We might be able to discuss it later if there is time.

Prompt question

Use this question to get the group going again if for some reason they have stalled.

Prompt question (from facilitator): You contributed the following points……what else might we need to think about here?

You can phrase this question in many different forms. The main principle behind it is that it gets the group moving again.

So, there you have it. Six questions that you can add to your group facilitation toolbox.

The Type A and Type B Questions for Group Facilitation – which one should you use?

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In his book, The Secrets of Facilitation, Michael Wilkinson described the Type A and Type B questions, both of which we can find ourselves using as we facilitate sessions. But is one type preferable? To answer that question, let’s first explore what both types of questions are. Some examples will help.

Imagine this scenario. You are training a group of participants on active listening and you want to start by checking their understanding of active listening. If you asked Type A and Type B questions, they may look like the following:

  • Type A: What does active listening look like?
  • Type B: Imagine you’ve just finished observing a conversation between two people and one of them demonstrated exceptional active listening. What did you observe the person doing that made you classify it as exceptional active listening?

What’s the difference between these two questions?

The Type A question is direct and just asks a question.

The Type B question puts an image in people’s minds. It causes people to see a picture of the answer in their minds.

To make people think and use their imagination, the Type B question is preferred. That is the strength of the Type B question over the Type A question.

How do you write a Type B question?

Here are some tips for writing Type B questions:

  • First, start with an image-building phrase – Imagine you’ve just finished observing a conversation between two people…
  • Next, extend the image with additional statements – ...and one of them demonstrated exceptional active listening.
  • Finally, add a Type A question – What did you observe the person doing that made you classify it as exceptional active listening?

Next time you want to ask your participants a question in one of your sessions, why don’t you make it a Type B question. Type A questions are easy and straightforward to ask (there are times you need to ask Type A questions) but asking Type B questions requires us to do a bit of preparation and be more thoughtful and it challenges people to be thoughtful too.

Here are some more examples:

Example 1

  • Type A: What are the communication challenges in your team?
  • Type B: Think about some of the times that poor communication has caused problems in your team. What were the communication issues that caused the problems?

Example 2

  • Type A: What are the qualities of good induction for new staff?
  • Type B: Imagine that you are a new team member in your organisation and you’ve just finished your six months probation review. The HR team has asked you for some feedback about your induction and you had a really good experience. What are the things you experienced during your induction period that made it a good induction for you?

Communicating effectively with SOAR – Open-questions

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SOAR is an acronym that outlines four key skills that can help us communicate effectively. The four SOAR skills are – Summarising, Open-questions, Affirmations and Reflections. In this lesson you will learn about the second component of SOAR which is ‘Open-questions’.

26 - Communicate effective with SOAR - Open-questions