Appendix H: Tips on Probing for More Information
Probing involves asking follow-up questions when:
- a response is not fully understood,
- answers are vague, ambiguous, confusing or unclear
- more specific or in-depth information is needed.
When using monitoring tools like the Interview Guide, probes or ways of digging for more information cannot be planned in advance. It is not possible to know what issues the Interviewee might raise and how Monitors might need to probe or question further to learn more. But, it is helpful to be aware of the possible need to probe and some general ways to do so. Here are some examples of probing questions:
- Could you please tell me more about…?
- I just want to make sure I really understood you. What was it exactly that…?
- I’m not certain what you mean by… Could you give me some examples?
- You mentioned… What stands out in your mind about that?
- This is what I thought I heard… Did I understand you correctly?
- How does it make you feel? What makes you feel that way?
- You just told me about… I’d also like to know about…
- Can I take you back to something you said earlier?…
- When you said…, what gave you that impression?
- What makes you say that?
Questions beginning with ‘what’ or ‘how’ are good probing questions because they ask for more detail.
Important Tip: Avoid questions that begin with ‘why’. They may make the Interviewee feel defensive. Instead of ‘why’, start the question with ‘what’.
The questions in the Interview Guide have been designed to avoid ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses, but it will also be important to probe for depth and ask more questions to get more details. Probing is especially important at the beginning of the interview since this lets the Interviewee know that you want to know the whole story and not just a summary. It sets the tone. If an Interviewee realizes that every brief response to an open-ended question is going to be followed by a set of extra direct questions, he or she may begin to give more details without the Monitors having to prompt.
Important Tip: The quality of the final monitoring report depends to a great extent on the quality and richness of the data collected through personal interviews. Probing to get more complete answers to the questions or clarify the meaning of a particular statement is a very important technique for Monitors to develop.