what does open ended assignment mean

What Is an Open Ended Employment Contract?

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Open-ended employment is the same thing as "at will" employment. At-will employment is common in the U.S.: You work for a company without any guarantee of how long it will keep you around. That works both ways, as you are free to quit at will. The alternative is a fixed-term contract committing your employer to keep you on for, say, two years.

At-Will Employment

The U.S. does not have the body of law governing open-ended employment that many countries do. In the United States, it is accepted as the norm: in every state but Montana, at-will employment is the default. Unless the employer specifically agrees to some other terms such as guaranteed employment for X years, only fired for cause, your employment is at-will. At-will employment does not even need a written agreement. A simple verbal contract such as "you're hired" will do the trick.

Open-ended employment also gives your employer the freedom to modify the terms of the employment agreement at will. Employers can cut wages, reduce benefits, raise the premiums on your health insurance or cut your time off, compared to what you started with. In most cases, it is completely legal.

Alternative Contracts

Although at-will employment is the norm, it is not universal. If a company wants an employee badly enough, it may agree to a fixed-term contract. For example, a high-level executive might come aboard with a written contract guaranteeing five-years employment with a set level of salary and benefits. The contract will usually include terms for firing the executive early, such as stealing from the company.

Forty-one states recognize implied employment contracts. For example, if an employer hires you and states you will get a second chance if you screw up, the implication is that you will not be fired for a first mistake. If the company has a standard policy for dealing with sub-par performers and you get 90 days to turn things around, for example, you can argue that this implies you will not be fired at once. If you are fired and you sue, however, courts tend to be skeptical about implied contracts.

Exceptions to At-Will

The law does set some limits on open-ended employment contracts. Suppose your employer fires you because you refused to perform a criminal act or cuts your hours because you filed for workers' compensation payments. Terminating you in those situations goes against "the public interest" so it is not acceptable.

Some states do not allow at-will firing if it constitutes bad faith. That includes acts such as firing you to avoid paying a large sales commission. Employers also cannot fire you or underpay you because of your race, gender, faith, nationality and other protected classes.

The exact rules vary from state-to-state, but in general, employers in open-ended contracts have the upper hand.

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Fraser Sherman has written about every aspect of working life: the importance of professional ethics, the challenges of business communication, workers' rights and how to cope with bullying bosses. He lives in Durham NC with his awesome wife and two wonderful dogs. You can find him online at frasersherman.com

What does a "fire at will state" mean, can labor unions & employment at will coexist, how to compare the right to work & employment at will, what constitutes a valid employment agreement, why are disclaimers in employee handbooks important, employment settlement agreements, limitations on at-will employment, requirements for a valid employment contract, can you be fired for fraternization, most popular.

1 What Does a "Fire at Will State" Mean?
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3 How to Compare the Right to Work & Employment at Will
4 What Constitutes a Valid Employment Agreement?

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How I Make Open-Ended Assignments Really Work in My Middle School Classroom

It doesn’t look like school. There’s no standard process. Here’s what we do instead.

How I Make Open-Ended Assignments Work in My Classroom

It’s first period, so it’s still chilly on the basketball court, but the students are breaking a sweat as they argue about how to finish their project on time. On the nearby soccer field, a light saber battle rages.

I leave the heated discussion to check on the group I’m most concerned about, the five boys I’ve allowed to climb the fence into the woods behind the school. I know they’re on-task and focused, but there are snakes back there in the spring, and it’ll really put a damper on the class period if anybody has to go to the hospital.

My seventh grade Language Arts students are making short films showcasing all the steps of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. They’re using their phones (or school cameras, or my phone) to shoot the screenplays they spent last week storyboarding and drafting.

It doesn’t look like school. There’s no standard process. There’s no standard product. Each of my students will learn different things from this assignment. My directors will hone their leadership skills, while other members might learn how to present their ideas in ways that will appeal to their group mates.

Some kids will give command performances on camera, while others shine during the editing process. They’ll all pick up some literary and film vocabulary—archetypes, camera angles, motifs—and they’ll all work on the so-called “soft skills” deemed most necessary in today’s job market; working out their differences, adapting to unforeseen challenges and so on.

It took me a long time to be able to assign projects this open-ended. There were very few guidelines and limitations on what the students could do, and whenever they ask questions, I tried to err on the side of offering them as much freedom as possible.

And I believe it’s working. They’re learning, they’re engaged, they’re excited. I told them we would film everything in class, but I think every group has decided to meet over the weekend and work on it for homework. Surely that counts for something.

Through this process, I’ve learned that, while open-ended assignments are both frustrating and exhilarating, there are a few things that must be in place before attempting one:

1. Administrative support.

Otherwise, when your kids are walking around the school in masks carrying bags of fake blood and contraband cell phones, it’s going to get awkward.

2. A solid rubric.

I broke mine down into what the kids needed to accomplish each day of the project, and that really helped. I also gave them time for team meetings each day at the beginning and end of class, and that helped me to check in with them and see what they needed from me.

3. Faith in both the kids and your assignment.

I let my kids choose their own groups, but warned a few kids beforehand (privately) not to work together. This gave me a lot more freedom; I knew no romantic pairs would be wandering off into the woods for a tryst, and I knew that the kids who egg each other on or have frequent conflicts wouldn’t be working together. I also felt confident enough in my assignment to believe that the kids would be consistently engaged and focused, which I think was accurate.

4. Absolutely ruthlessness when it comes to enforcing expectations.

I let the kids know early on that I could and would pull any kid from any group who was off-task or whose behavior was detrimental to the group. I showed them the alternate assignment and had a colleague ready and willing to take a kid for the class period if needed.

Although I did deduct points from two kids’ grades for an illicit game of soccer, I didn’t have to pull anyone from the project. I think the fact that the kids knew I would remove them from the group if I needed to resulted in general good behavior throughout the project.

5. A tolerance for failure.

When you’re guiding kids through a standardized process to a standardized product, it’s easy to see when things go wrong and correct it. I’ve really had to step back and let the kids figure out their own mistakes this time.

When one group spent a whole class period doing take after take of kids rolling down a hill, I bit my tongue and tried not to watch too anxiously, knowing it would put them behind on their filming. It did, and they spent recess time filming and scaled back their project to make up for it. Letting them make and learn from their mistakes is one of the best gifts I can give them, although it isn’t easy for me.

I’m very lucky to have the freedom to assign projects like this to my students. In the past two weeks, I’ve put miles on my FitBit walking around the school checking on various groups. I’ve bought two boxes of hot tea for my throat, thanks to the cold mornings outside and the repeated shouts of, “Make sure you watch for snakes!”

I’ve also gained some valuable experience and I have big plans for how I’ll continue assignments like this one with all my classes. Hopefully. We’ll see how their films turn out when we screen them on Monday. And whether anybody gets snakebit.

Why This Teacher Takes Her Students to Live Performances Every Year

A former ballerina turned elementary teacher shares the benefits for her students. Continue Reading

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

Open-Ended Assignments: Tips Towards Narrowing Your Research

When a professor assigns a research paper with no specific prompt, it sometimes can be hard to know exactly what kind of work is expected. Assignments like these may provide a suggested page count and an injunction to stay within the bounds of the course theme, but little else. In this case, the possibilities for paper topics seem infinite. Once you get past this hurdle and settle on a general idea you would like to explore, you still may feel compelled to answer some big questions; questions that might cover a long time frame, seek to identify general trends with a large sample size, or tackle broad theoretical questions. So much of the academic material we are exposed to seems to deal with these “big questions”: survey lectures, assigned readings with titles of sweeping breadth, and the prospect of the senior thesis.

The impulse you may have to ask big questions is natural, then— and it’s a good impulse, too! It is a great way to jumpstart your research, beginning the process of narrowing down by going from infinite potential topics to many potential topics. But, with a looming due date (unfortunately) limiting your research time, keeping your question broad can become overwhelming, and hinder your ability to meaningfully answer it.

During my experience this summer working on an independent research project as an intern with the Office of Undergraduate Research’s ReMatch+ program, I came to learn the importance of narrowing your question early in the research process. Though through the wonderful advice of my ReMatch+ graduate student mentor , my research was pretty specific by midsummer (focusing on the language of “othering” in New York City press reports of a June 1848 Paris workers’ rebellion), it took me several weeks to get to there— necessary time in retrospect, but time I would have rather been developing my topic rather than figuring out what it was. I definitely could have benefited from some guidance at the beginning of my work. So, with that in mind, I hope the tips below will help you narrow your research questions early on, so you don’t have to learn the hard way like I did.

Identify Personal Interest: Even for a required assignment, personal interest should drive your research. In-depth study is more enjoyable if you actually like the materials you are working with, and being personally invested can help keep your motivation up. So, identifying personal interest is the first step towards a specific question. Ask yourself: Which part of a course engaged you most? What readings jumped out at you? Are there interests of yours outside the course that you can integrate into your paper? Hopefully, the answers to these questions will begin narrowing down your potential topics. For further help on identifying personal interest, check our fellow PCUR Ellie Breitfeld’s post here .

Choose Background Reading Wisely: Once you have figured out what you are personally interested in, I would recommend looking at a few relevant survey books (books that cover topics in a broad sense, easily findable with keyword searches on the library website ) and reading their introductions and conclusions. Both can be helpful summaries of the book, showing you if it is relevant to your work. They also often have synopses of each chapter, so you can see which may be worth reading. Reading specific chapters is a great start— don’t feel like you need to read every book cover to cover!

Endnotes Are Your Friend: Say you have read some specific chapters, and maybe some journal articles, and you now have a more concrete, narrow question in mind. Where to go for original research? Check out the endnotes to the chapters/articles/books you have read. They can give you a sense of which primary sources you may want to consult, and also a one-stop shopping list of even more specific secondary literature that can help you frame your argument within existing scholarship.

Let Your Question Follow the Sources: If you stick to your initial “big” questions through your source work, you may become frustrated if your sources don’t quite line up with the framework of your question. Be flexible, and adjust your question to available information.

Trust in the Richness of Primary Sources: A single primary source can furnish a surprising amount of info to analyze: when I began my summer intending to study a period from 1848 to 1871, I never expected I would be close-reading newspapers from a single month in 1848! But these sources from the summer of 1848 were so complex, they were worthy of focused study. And, as I learned, don’t be afraid to close-read. Sources yield far more information if you interrogate them beyond the superficial. Close-reading a small number of sources— and the specific questions it brings up— may be more fruitful in a short time frame than chasing hundreds of sources to answer a broader question.

These tips are by no means a suggestion to cut corners, or to totally jettison your “big questions”. In fact, a narrow research focus can be an anchor to a larger, extrapolated argument, and, with due dates ahead, ensure your work is doable and satisfying!

— Alec Israeli, Humanities Correspondent

Teaching with open-ended inquiry

Rebecca Price: Helping students to think critically in the classroom and beyond

“The trick is to use ideas from other fields to enhance the way we teach scholarship and critical thinking within our own disciplines. I was on a review panel for the University’s Library Research Award for Undergraduates, and I was impressed by the way students who had done archival research crafted sophisticated arguments and used evidence. Since then my approach to teaching biology has been influenced by discussions with historians.”

Rebecca Price Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell

The ability to think critically enables UW graduates to be capable problem-solvers and thoughtful world citizens. It also helps them get jobs, a fact often lost in the ongoing debate about the relevance of a college education. 1,2 In a recent national study of university faculty, ninety-nine percent of instructors agreed that the main purpose of college is learning to think critically. 3 However, surveys of parents, prospective students, and the general public indicate that most people see a degree as a means either to get a job, or to get a better job. 4,5 These data may seem at odds, but surveys also show that employers prioritize critical thinking and problem-solving skills in hiring and promotion decisions. 1,6,7 All students practice these skills in their majors when they define problems; evaluate multiple perspectives; and offer solutions, arguments, or claims based on evidence. Yet undergraduates are often unaware of how their class assignments help them develop these abilities. Faculty can help students make these connections by discussing the skills they model and that students are practicing, or by explicitly teaching skills, whether general concepts about effective ways to approach new information 8 or discipline-specific skills, such as how to approach a problem like a biologist, philosopher, or art historian. 9 UW faculty such as Rebecca Price are challenging students to do just that—to ask questions, be creative, and cultivate reasoning skills that will become life-long assets.

Rebecca Price’s students learn how to develop research questions through open-ended projects, from measuring skulls to analyzing sculpture. Price received an award from Science magazine for a week-long exercise in which students measure reproductions of ancient and modern human and primate skulls to test ideas about human evolution. Changes in these activities reflect Price’s own evolution away from what she calls “recipe-based” activities. Initially, she told students what areas of the skulls to measure. Now she requires students to decide what to measure on their own.

“The long-term benefits are extraordinarily wonderful. I see students who can collect data and use those data to change their interpretation of a scientific hypothesis. That’s success,” says Price. Here are her principles for open-ended assignments:

Practice inquiry by tossing the answer sheet: Now Price has decided that even the skull-measuring activity is a bit too scripted because she knows the correct answer to the exercise. She has developed open-ended exercises for her classes “Science Methods and Practice” (BES 301) and “The Visual Art of Biology” (BIS 382) where students use databases to test hypotheses. In the methods course, Price says, “I mix up the databases every time I teach this course so the students keep asking new questions. It keeps it interesting for me.” In the arts class, students develop their own database of artwork to construct their own definition of what is—and what isn’t—bioart.

Don’t worry about running out of questions: Students, who work in groups in the methods class and individually in the arts class, are required to study the relevant literature and develop novel questions. There has never been a problem with duplicates. “That’s what’s so exciting about scholarship. We never run out of questions,” says Price. She groups students with similar queries “so they can share the literature, review each other’s work, and really support each other.”

Give students room to be creative, but provide explicit expectations: Price helps students construct their own requirements for an assignment, for example, analyzing scientific literature to identify the rules for writing scientifically.

Help students think about ways they might refine the inquiry they began in class: Students in a previous class produced such good case studies on using data to understand climate change that Price suggested they publish their work. One student took up Price on her offer, persevering through years of research and revision until the case study was published by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (accompanying teaching notes provide detailed how-tos for K-12 instructors).

Resources: Rebecca Price, “ How We Got Here: An Inquiry-Based Activity About Human Evolution,” Science , 12 December 2012; winner of the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction .

1 National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Job Outlook 2013. Bethlehem, PA: NACE, November 2012. https://www.engr.colostate.edu/ece/pdfs/industry/job_outlook_2014.pdf .

2 Humphreys, Debra, and Patrick Kelly. How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment: A Report on Earnings and Long-Term Career Paths. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); Boulder, CO: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), January 2014. https://www.aacu.org/leap/nchems/index.cfm . Free summary available at: http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/nchems.pdf .

3 Hurtado, Sylvia, Kevin Eagan, John Pryor, Hannah Whang, and Serge Tran. Undergraduate Teaching Faculty: The 2010–2011 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2012. http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/HERI-FAC2011-Monograph.pdf .

4 Jaschik, Scott. “Jobs, Value and Affirmative Action: A Survey of Parents About College.” Inside Higher Ed, 20 March 2013. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/jobs-value-and-affirmative-action-survey-parents-about-college#sthash.CXW5Ygwe.dpbs .

5 Eagan, Kevin, Jennifer B. Lozano, Sylvia Hurtado, and Matthew H. Case. The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2013. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2013. http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/TheAmericanFreshman2013.pdf .

6 Hart Research Associates. It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success, An Online Survey Among Employers Conducted on Behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), 10 April 2013. http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/2013_EmployerSurvey.pdf .

7 Bridgstock, Ruth. “The Graduate Attributes We’ve Overlooked: Enhancing Graduate Employability Through Career Management Skills.” Higher Education Research & Development 28, no. 1 (March 2009): 31–44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347.

8 Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP). “Essential Learning Outcomes” [resource portal]. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), accessed 29 April 2014. http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm .

9 Beyer, Catherine Hoffman, Gerald Gillmore, and Andrew Fisher. Inside the Undergraduate Experience: The University of Washington’s Study of Undergraduate Learning. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduaion .

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Meaning of open-ended in English

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be neither fish nor fowl idiom
circumstantial
indeterminate
indeterminately
interrogatively
wishy-washy
you never know idiom

open-ended | Business English

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injury to someone caused by severe cold, usually to their toes, fingers, ears, or nose, that causes permanent loss of tissue

Keeping up appearances (Talking about how things seem)

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What Are Open-Ended, Close-Ended Questions? Definition, Examples

Home » The Writer’s Dictionary » What Are Open-Ended, Close-Ended Questions? Definition, Examples

Open-ended question definition: Open-ended questions are questions that have unlimited response options.

Close-ended question definition: Close-ended questions are questions that have limited response options.

What is an Open-ended Question?

Open-ended questions are questions that allow for various response options. Open-ended questions do not expect a particular answer. Rather, they allow the individual providing the response to answer however he chooses.

Examples of Open-ended Questions

What was your childhood like?
How did you decide to enter this profession?
When would you like to visit the museum?

Open-ended questions are common in job interviews.

What is a Close-ended Question?

The answers to close-ended questions are limited and require certain answers.

Typically, close-ended questions lend themselves to “yes” or “no” responses. Furthermore, close-ended questions are usually specific in nature.

Examples of Close-ended Questions

Did you attend the conference?
Will you eat dinner with us?
Do you like vanilla ice cream?
When were you born?

As you can see, the answers to these questions will be much less involved than those of the open question.

Open-End Questions vs. Close-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions and close-ended questions are different in that they elicit very different responses.

The following questions illustrate close- and open-ended questions side-by-side. The questions are similar in subject matter, but the responses will vary depending on the question style.

Open-ended vs. Close-ended Questions:

What is your favorite ice cream flavor? / Do you like chocolate ice cream?
How are you feeling? / Are you feeling well?
What are you plans this evening? / Do you have dinner plans?
What homework do you have to complete? / Do you have math homework?
Where is your shirt? / Is your shirt in the closet?
Where should I buy a new blouse? / Should I buy a blouse at the mall?
When is your birthday? / Is your birthday in May?
What books did you read this summer? / Did you read a book from the suggested list?
Where is your next vacation? / Do you think you will go to Europe soon?
How did you meet your husband? / Are you married?

As you can see from these examples, each question type brings out a different kind of response. Close-ended questions are more specific, while open-ended ones are much more “open.”

How Is Each Question Used?

Close-ended questions are best used when you want a short, direct answer to a very specific question. They are less personal in nature and are best used when the person asking wants a quick answer.

Are the following questions open- or close-ended questions?

Will you attend the dance tonight?
How will you evade the storm?
Did you bring the camera?
Why can’t I join you?
Would you like a new dress?

See answers below.

Summary: What Are Open-Ended, Close-Ended Questions?

Define open-ended question: an open-ended question is a question that does not expect a specific, narrow answer.

Define closed-ended question: a close-ended question is a question that expects a specific answer and does not give leeway outside of that answer.

In summary,

Open-ended questions are broad and do not expect a specific answer.
Close-ended questions are limiting and expect a specific answer.

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D-lab: waste, designing and assessing the open-ended final project.

In this section, Kate Mytty describes how the final project in EC.716 D-Lab: Waste reflected the overall goals of MIT’s D-Lab and shares an example of student work. She also describes how the project was assessed and shares tips for providing students with productive feedback.

Designing the Final Project to Align with D-Lab Goals

"We designed the project, which focused on an open-ended waste-related topic, to be action-oriented, hands-on, and practical."

Our course on waste is offered by MIT’s D-Lab . D-Lab is a learning space devoted to promoting development through discovery, design, and dissemination. Much of the work in D-Lab focuses on design at the grassroots level, and inclusive community engagement is highly valued. The scientists involved in D-Lab are tinkerers—they’re interested in hands-on, practical projects that will meet the needs and constraints of the communities they’re designed to support. D-Lab is often one of the main places on campus where MIT students have the opportunity to do hands-on work in real-world settings.

Our understanding of D-Lab, and its goals, shaped how we designed the EC.716 D-Lab: Waste final project (PDF) . In particular, we designed the project, which focused on an open-ended waste-related topic, to be action-oriented, hands-on, and practical. Students were challenged to develop projects that would involve stakeholder engagement. Students were also required to incorporate research, design elements, evaluation, and an implementation plan into their projects. Students had the option of conceptualizing the project from several different perspectives (artistic, technological, civic engagement, etc.), and were encouraged to select the approach that aligned best with their interests.

An Example of Student Work

One team of students chose to work closely with MIT’s Environment, Health & Safety Office (EHS) to tackle the issue of lab waste on campus. They learned that most lab waste is categorized as biohazards waste, regardless of what happens in the lab. This is because researchers in the labs and, of course, EHS, want to err on the side of safety.

Through interviews with EHS Biosafety stakeholders, the team learned that different labs fill their bins at different rates. This means that EHS dispatches a collection team at the same frequency regardless of how much waste is in a bin. Because MIT pays a fee for each bin that is disposed, regardless of how much trash is in the bin, EHS stakeholders wanted to explore options for creating a smarter, more systematic lab waste collection system.

To address the needs of EHS, the student team built a “multi-sensory bio-waste box” (PDF) prototype. The prototype provides EHS with specific data about each waste bin that informs EHS about when to dispatch the disposal service to collect the waste bin. We’re hoping that a future group will continue to work with EHS to further develop the project.

Assessing the Project

We evaluated the projects based on the degree to which students engaged stakeholders, the feasibility of their implementation plan, the strength of their arguments, and the thoroughness of their research and design processes. Because students came to the class with different interests, we intentionally did not evaluate students on the specific objectives of their projects. We did, however, make sure students had a strong sense of what they wanted to accomplish through their action-oriented projects.

We accomplished this mainly through check-in sessions with individual teams throughout the semester. During the first check-in, students shared with us brief project statements, which we reviewed with them. During the second check-in session, they shared detailed outlines of their project plans. The third check-in allowed us to review their work-in-progress.

Providing Productive Feedback

I’ve found that one way to provide students with productive feedback on their projects is to give specific examples and references that illustrate the changes I think would improve their work. I might say to a student, for example, “Your project on recycling gives the reader a good sense of what scientists in the field have said about your topic, but your project could benefit from more on-the-ground research. Consider going to five local stores to see how they approach recycling in their businesses.” Sometimes I also provide an example of how other students have approached similar challenges or questions in their projects. Overall, I’ve found that being as specific as possible is helpful.

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Definition of open-ended

Examples of open-ended in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'open-ended.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1825, in the meaning defined above

Dictionary Entries Near open-ended

open-end straight

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“Open-ended.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-ended. Accessed 30 May. 2024.

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Open-ended questions vs. close-ended questions: examples and how to survey users

Unless you’re a mind reader, the only way to find out what your users are thinking is to ask them. That's what surveys are for.

But the way you ask a question often determines the kind of answer you get—and one of the first decisions you have to make is: are you going to ask an open-ended or a closed-ended question?

Last updated

Reading time.

Understanding the difference between open-ended and close-ended questions helps you ask better, more targeted questions, so you can get actionable answers. The question examples we cover in this article look at open- and closed-ended questions in the context of a website survey, but the principle applies across any type of survey you may want to run.

Start from the top or skip ahead to

What’s the difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions?

4 tips on how to craft your survey questions for a maximum response rate

5 critical open-ended questions to ask customers

When to ask open-ended questions vs. closed-ended questions

Open-ended vs. close-ended questions: what’s the difference?

Open-ended questions are questions that cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and instead require the respondent to elaborate on their points.

Open-ended questions help you see things from a customer’s perspective as you get feedback in their own words instead of stock answers. You can analyze open-ended questions using spreadsheets , view qualitative research and data analysis trends, and even spot elements that stand out with word cloud visualizations.

Closed-ended questions are questions that can only be answered by selecting from a limited number of options, usually multiple-choice questions with a single-word answer (‘yes’ or ‘no’) or a rating scale (e.g. from strongly agree to strongly disagree).

Closed-ended questions give limited insight, but can easily be analyzed for quantitative data . For example, one of the most popular closed questions in market research is the Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey, which asks people “How likely are you to recommend this product/service on a scale from 0 to 10?” and uses numerical answers to calculate overall score trends. Check out our NPS survey template to see this closed-ended question in action.

Let’s take a look at the examples of open-ended questions vs. closed-ended questions above.

All the closed questions in the left column can be responded to with a one-word answer that gives you the general sentiment of each user and a few useful data points about their satisfaction, which help you look at trends and percentages. For example, did the proportion of people who declared themselves happy with your website change in the last three, six, or 12 months?

The open-ended questions in the right column let customers provide detailed responses with additional information so you understand the context behind a problem or learn more about your unique selling points . If you’re after qualitative data like this, the easy way to convert closed-ended into open-ended questions is to consider the range of possible responses and re-word your questions to allow for a free-form answer.

💡 Pro tip : when surveying people on your website with Hotjar Surveys , our Survey Logic feature lets you ask follow-up questions that help you find out the what and the why behind your users’ actions.

For more inspiration, here are 20+ real examples of open- and closed-ended questions you can ask on your website, along with a bunch of free pre-built survey templates and 50+ more survey questions to help you craft a better questionnaire for your users.

Or, take advantage of Hotjar’s AI for Surveys , which generates insightful survey questions based on your research goal in seconds and prepares an automated summary report with key takeaways and suggested next steps once results are in.

Use Hotjar to build your survey and get the customer insights you need to grow your business.

How to ask survey questions for maximum responses

It’s often easy to lead your customers to the answer you want, so make sure you’re following these guidelines:

1. Embrace negative feedback

Some customers may find it hard to leave negative feedback if your questions are worded poorly.

For example, “We hope there wasn’t anything bad about your experience with us, but if so, please let us know” is better phrased neutrally as “Let us know if there was anything you’d like us to do differently.” It might sting a little to hear negative comments, but it’s your biggest opportunity to really empathize with customers and fuel your UX improvements moving forward.

2. Don’t lead your customers

“You bought 300 apples over the past year. What's your favorite fruit?” is an example of a leading question . You just planted the idea of an apple in your customers' mind. Valuable survey questions are open and objective—let people answer them in their own words, from their own perspective, and you’ll get more meaningful answers.

3. Avoid asking ‘and why?’

Tacking “and why?” on at the end of a question will only give you simple answers. And, no, adding “and why?” will not turn closed-ended questions into open-ended ones!

Asking “What did you purchase today, and why?” will give you an answer like “3 pairs of socks for a gift” (and that’s if you’re lucky), whereas wording the question as “Why did you choose to make a purchase today?” allows for an open answer like, “I saw your special offer and bought socks for my niece.”

4. Keep your survey simple

Not many folks love filling in a survey that’s 50 questions long and takes an hour to complete. For the most effective data collection (and decent response rates), you need to keep the respondents’ attention span in mind. Here’s how:

Keep question length short : good questions are one-sentence long and worded as concisely as possible

Limit the number of questions : take your list of planned questions and be ruthless when narrowing them down. Keep the questions you know will lead to direct insight and ditch the rest.

Show survey progress : a simple progress bar, or an indication of how many questions are left, motivates users to finish your survey

5 of our favorite open-ended questions to ask customers

Now that you know how to ask good open-ended questions , it’s time to start putting the knowledge into practice.

To survey your website users, use Hotjar's feedback tools to run on-page surveys, collect answers, and visualize results. You can create surveys that run on your entire site, or choose to display them on specific pages (URLs).

Different types of Hotjar surveys

As for what to ask—if you're just getting started, the five open-ended questions below are ideal for any website, whether ecommerce or software-as-a-service:

1. How can we make this page better?

If you missed the expectations set by a customer, you may have over-promised or under-delivered. Ask users where you missed the mark today, and you’ll know how to properly set, and meet, expectations in the future. An open platform for your customers to tell you their pain points is far more valuable for increasing customer satisfaction than guessing what improvements you should make. Issues could range from technical bugs to lack of product range.

2. Where exactly did you first hear about us?

An open “How did you find out about us?” question leaves users to answer freely, without leading them to a stock response, and gives you valuable information that might be harder to track with traditional analytics tools.

We have a traffic attribution survey template ready and waiting for you to get started.

3. What is stopping you from [action] today?

A “What is stopping you?” question can be shown on exit pages ; the open-form answers will help you identify the barriers to conversion that stop people from taking action.

Questions like this can also be triggered in a post-purchase survey on a thank you or order confirmation page. This type of survey only focuses on confirmed customers: after asking what almost stopped them, you can address any potential obstacles they highlight and fix them for the rest of your site visitors.

4. What are your main concerns or questions about [product/service]?

Finding out the concerns and objections of potential customers on your website helps you address them in future versions of the page they’re on and the products they’ll use. It sounds simple, but you’ll be surprised by how candid and helpful your users will be when answering this one.

Do you want to gather feedback on your product specifically? Learn what to improve and understand what users really think with our product feedback survey template and this expert advice on which product questions to ask when your product isn't selling.

5. What persuaded you to [take action] today?

Learning what made a customer click ‘buy now’ or ‘sign up’ helps you identify your levers. Maybe it’s low prices, fast shipping, or excellent customer service—whatever the reason, finding out what draws customers in and convinces them to stay helps you emphasize these benefits to other users and, ultimately, increase conversions.

Ask the right questions at the right time to get the insights you need

Whether you’re part of a marketing, product, sales, or user research team, asking the right questions through customer interviews or on-site surveys helps you collect feedback to create better user experiences and increase conversions and sales.

The type of question you choose depends on what you’re trying to achieve:

Ask a closed-ended question when you want answers that can be plotted on a graph and used to show trends and percentages. For example, answers to the closed-ended question “Do you trust the information on [website]?” helps you understand the proportion of people who find your website trustworthy versus those who do not.

Ask an open-ended question when you want in-depth answers to better understand your customers and their needs , get more context behind their actions, and investigate the reasons behind their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your product. For example, the open-ended question “If you could change anything on this page, what would it be?” allows your customers to express, in their own words, what they think you should be working on next.

Not only is the kind of question you ask important—but the moment you ask it is equally relevant. Hotjar Surveys , our online survey tool , has a user-friendly survey builder that lets you effortlessly craft a survey and embed it anywhere on your web page to ask the right questions at the right time and place.

User research

5 tips to recruit user research participants that represent the real world

Whether you’re running focus groups for your pricing strategy or conducting usability testing for a new product, user interviews are one of the most effective research methods to get the needle-moving insights you need. But to discover meaningful data that helps you reach your goals, you need to connect with high-quality participants. This article shares five tips to help you optimize your recruiting efforts and find the right people for any type of research study.

Hotjar team

How to instantly transcribe user interviews—and swiftly unlock actionable insights

After the thrill of a successful user interview, the chore of transcribing dialogue can feel like the ultimate anticlimax. Putting spoken words in writing takes several precious hours—time better invested in sharing your findings with your team or boss.

But the fact remains: you need a clear and accurate user interview transcript to analyze and report data effectively. Enter automatic transcription. This process instantly transcribes recorded dialogue in real time without human help. It ensures data integrity (and preserves your sanity), enabling you to unlock valuable insights in your research.

Shadz Loresco

An 8-step guide to conducting empathetic (and insightful) customer interviews

Customer interviews uncover your ideal users’ challenges and needs in their own words, providing in-depth customer experience insights that inform product development, new features, and decision-making. But to get the most out of your interviews, you need to approach them with empathy. This article explains how to conduct accessible, inclusive, and—above all—insightful interviews to create a smooth (and enjoyable!) process for you and your participants.

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Open-Ended Questions: Examples & Advantages

When designing surveys , we often need to describe whether to use open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions to get specific information. Yet we need to be aware that open-ended and closed-ended questions have their strengths and weaknesses and perform in different ways.

Open-ended are those questions that a sender makes to encourage one or several receivers to obtain some information in response. For example: Where is my wallet?

LEARN ABOUT: Testimonial Questions

Open-Ended Questions: Definition

Open-ended questions are free-form survey questions that allow and encourage respondents to answer in open-text format to answer based on their complete knowledge, feeling, and understanding. The detailed response to this question is not limited to a set of options.

Unlike a closed-ended question that leaves survey responses limited and narrow to the given options, an open-ended question allows you to probe deep into the respondent’s detailed answers, gaining valuable information about the subject or project. The responses to these qualitative research questions can be used to attain detailed and descriptive information on a subject.

LEARN ABOUT: course evaluation survey examples

They are an integral part of Qualitative Market Research . This research process depends heavily on open and subjective questions and answers on a given topic of discussion or conversation, with room for further probing by the researcher based on the answer given by the respondent. In a typical scenario, closed-ended questions are used to gather qualitative data from respondents.

Learn more: Qualitative Research- Definition, Types, Methods and Examples

Examples of Open-Ended Questions

Respondents like open-ended questions as they get 100% control over what they want to respond to, and they don’t feel restricted by the limited number of options. The beauty of the process is that there can never be a one-word answer. They’ll either be in the form of lists, sentences or something longer like speech/paragraph.

So, to understand this more, here are some open-ended question examples:

Interview method : How do you plan to use your existing skills to improve organizational growth, if hired by the company?
Customer-facing: Please describe a scenario where our online marketplace helps a person make day-to-day purchases in daily life.
Technical: Can you please explain the back-end Javascript code template used for this webpage or blog post?
Demographic: What is your age? (asked without survey options)
Personal / Psychographic: How do you typically deal with stress and anxiety in your life?

In a study conducted by Pew Research, respondents were asked, “What mattered most to you while deciding how you voted for president?” One group was asked this question in a close-ended question format, while the other was asked in an open-ended one. The results are displayed below:

In the close-ended questions format, 58% of respondents chose “The economy”. In the other format, only 35% wrote an answer that indicated “The economy.” Note that only 8% of respondents selected “Other” in the format of the close-ended question. With an open-ended format, 43% of respondents wrote in a response that would have been categorized as “Other.”

Open-Ended Questions vs Close Ended Questions

Open-ended questions motivate the respondents to put their feedback into words without restricting people’s thoughts. They aren’t as objective and dominant as close-ended questions.

By using these leading questions, the researcher understands the respondents’ true feelings. They have an element that will give you information about different thought processes across your clientele, troubleshooting suggestions, and getting a peek into their inhibitions too.

The open-ended and closed-ended questions are different tasks for respondents. In the open-ended task, respondents write down what is readily available in their minds. In the close-ended question task, respondents focus their “attention on specific responses chosen by the investigator” (Converse and Presser, 1986).
Asking the same question in these two different formats will almost always produce different results. Many investigators have demonstrated this over several decades.
Few respondents are going to select the “Other” category and enter responses that are different from the answer choices that are listed.

So what does this mean for us? If you can, do qualitative research first and ensure your close-ended questions represent the items in people’s heads. We need the list of items to be complete since few respondents will select the “Other” category. It may also be necessary to list items not readily available to respondents if they are important to you.

LEARN ABOUT: Survey Sample Sizes

When presenting results , I have found it helpful to explain the fundamental differences between open-ended and closed-ended question examples in a sentence or two. It helps them understand that these are not necessarily precise measurements but measurements that require some interpretation relative to other questions in the survey and additional information from steps in qualitative research . Hence, that is why they need an analyst like you or me!

Why Use Open-Ended Questions?

Unrestricted opinions:.

The customers need a platform to voice their opinions without limits on the answers. Happy or unhappy. As answer options for questions aren’t provided, the respondent has the liberty to include details about good life, feelings, attitudes, and views that they usually wouldn’t get to submit in single word answers.

Creative Expression:

These questions are more appreciative of the respondents than close-ended questions as users aren’t expected to just “fill” them out for the sake of it.

Spellbinding Vision and Creativity:

Respondents may stun you with the vision and creativity they show with their more detailed answers. Links to their blogs or a verse or two of their poetry will leave you spellbound.

Embracing Freedom of Response:

If there are only close-ended questions in a microsurvey, the users usually get disconnected and fill it out without giving it much thought. With the kind of freedom that open-ended questions offer, users can respond the way they’d like to, be it the number of words or the details or the tone of the message.

LEARN ABOUT: Send Surveys Using Text Message

Driving Marketing and Innovation:

These responses may be marketing tips for improving the organization’s branding or some creative ideas that can lead to monetary gains in future.

Tackling Complexity:

Knotty situations need more than just a mere Yes/No feedback. Single-select or multiple choice questions cannot do justice to the detail process or scrutiny required for some critical and complex situations.

Exploring Feedback and Troubles:

These questions work best in situations where the respondents are expected to explain their feedback or describe the troubles they’re facing with the products.

Unveiling Customer Insights:

You can learn from your respondents. The open-ended questions offer the freedom to these respondents to be vocal about their opinion that would be insightful for a company.

Revealing Thought Patterns:

Respondent logic, thoughts, language, and reference choices can be known from these questions that can reveal a lot about how the respondent’s brain functions.

Always think before designing a survey as to what your objective is. Scrutinize the purpose, evaluate the positives and negatives of using an open or closed answer for your research study. Try it by sending out to a selected database, analyzing the results, and planning improvements for the next round of surveys.

LEARN ABOUT: Speaker evaluation form

How to Ask an Open-Ended Question?

Everything easy or complicated requires competence. Asking the right question is also one such thing that requires capabilities. Capability to understand and segment the target audience , determine the kind of questions that will work well with that audience, and determine the efficiency of them.

Here are four ways to create effective open-ended questions:

Understand the difference between open-ended question and closed-ended question:

Before you start putting questions to paper, you need to have absolute clarity on open-ended vs closed-ended questions . Your objective of sending out an online survey should be clear, and based on that, you can evaluate the kind of questions you would want to use. These are usually used where the feelings and feedback of the customer are highly valued. To receive 100% transparent feedback on these questions, make sure that you don’t lead the respondents with your questions and give them complete liberty to fill in whatever they want.

Create a list of open-ended questions before curating the survey:

Once you get clarity on what are open-ended questions and how to implement them, figure out a list of survey questions that you’d want to use. First, you can have a fair share of open-ended questions in your survey, which can fluctuate depending on your responses.

LEARN ABOUT: Social Communication Questionnaire

Examples of open-ended questions like these are extremely popular and give you more value-added insights:

Why do you think competitive market research is important before launching a new business?
How do you think you’ll overcome these obstacles in our project?
Tell us about your experience with our onboarding process.
What are your professional priorities at the moment?
What domain of work motivates you?
You can make a list of similar questions before you start executing the survey.

Reconstruct any question into an open-ended question:

Observation is the key here. Observe what kind of questions you usually ask your customers, prospects, and every other person you come across. Analyze whether your questions are closed-ended or open-ended. Try and convert those closed questions into open-end ones wherever you think the latter would fetch you better results and valuable insights.

Follow up a closed-ended question with an open-ended question:

This trick works wonders. It’s not always possible to convert a closed question into an open one, but you can follow up by getting a question answered.

For example, if you have a closed question like – “Do you think the product was efficient?” with the options “Yes” and “No”, you can follow it up with an open question like “How do you think we can make the product better in future?”

Regarding surveys, the advantages of open questions surpass that of closed ones.

How to Add Open-Ended Questions?

1. Goto: Login » Surveys » Edit » Workspace

2. Click on the Add Question button to add a question.

3. Select Basic, then go to the Text section and select Comment Box.

4. Enter the question text.

5. Select the data type: Single Row Text, Multiple Rows Text, Email address, or Numeric Data.

6. Select the Text Box Location (below or next to question text). Enabling “next to question text” will put the text box to the right of the question.

How to view the data collected by an open-ended question?

1. Click on Login » Surveys » Analytics » Text Analytics » Text Report

Please note that analysis for open-ended text questions is not included in the Real-Time Summary or Analysis Report. To view the analysis of open-ended questions, you can see the Word Cloud report.

LEARN ABOUT: Easy Test Maker

Can You Limit The Number of Characters in a Text Question?

You can set the limit of the number of characters that respondents can enter in the textbox.

How to Mark The Question as Mandatory?

To make the question mandatory, you can toggle the validation on and select ‘Force Response’. It is off by default. When ‘Force Response’ is not enabled, respondents can continue with the survey without selecting answers. If respondents go through all the pages in the online questionnaire without selecting answers, the response is still considered complete. You can enable the required option to make a question required so that respondents can continue with the survey only after responding to the questions.

LEARN ABOUT: Structured Questionnaire

Closed-ended questions, like open questions, are used in both spoken and written language and in formal and informal situations. It is common to find questions of this type in school or academic evaluations, interrogations, and job interviews, among many other options.

LEARN ABOUT: This or that questions

Whether you need a simple survey tool or a collaborative research solution, with our Academic licenses for universities and educational institutions, you get access to all the best features used by our Enterprise research clients.

Advanced logic and workflows for smarter surveys
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Open-ended questions are essential to note that crafting practical open-ended questions requires skill and careful consideration. Questions should be clear, concise, and relevant to the topic. They should avoid leading or biased language, allowing individuals to express their views without undue influence.

Overall, open-ended questions are powerful to gather information, foster communication, and gain deeper insights. Whether used in research, professional settings, or personal conversations, they enable individuals to explore ideas, share perspectives, critical thinking of a person, and engage in meaningful discussions. By embracing the openness and curiosity of open ended questions, we can uncover new knowledge, challenge assumptions, and broaden our understanding of the world.

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183 Examples of Open-ended vs Closed-ended Questions

If you’re interested in conversation and communication skills, you may have heard of open-ended and closed-ended questions.

In this article, you’ll learn the differences between these types of questions and when to ask them. We’ve also included lots of examples showing how you can use open-ended and closed-ended questions in day-to-day life.

What are open-ended and closed-ended questions?

The benefits of open-ended and closed-ended questions

When to use open-ended and closed-ended questions

Questions to help you get to know someone
Questions to use at work
Questions to use in a job interview
Questions to ask kids
Questions to ask teens

Two tips for asking good questions

The key difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions is that open-ended questions invite longer, more detailed answers compared with close-ended questions.

Closed-ended questions can be answered with “Yes,” “No,” or a brief statement of fact.

Here’s an example of a closed-ended versus open-ended question:

Closed question: “Do you like watching action movies?”

This is a closed question, because the other person will probably answer “Yes” or “No.”

Open question: “What kinds of movies do you like?”

This is an open question, because the other person could respond in many different ways. For example, they could say, “I don’t really watch movies,” “I like comedies,” or “Sometimes I like action movies, but mostly I’m into horror.”

Let’s look at another example:

Closed question: “What’s your job title?”

This is a closed question, because the answer is probably a simple statement of fact, e.g., “HR Assistant.”

Open question: “What do you do at work?”

This is an open question, because there isn’t a single objective answer. The other person could give their job title, but they could also give a much more in-depth answer. For example, they could say, “I work in Human Resources, mostly helping the manager to recruit new hires.”

Open-ended questions often start with one of the following words or phrases:

How… (e.g., “How did you like your last job?”)
Why… (e.g., “Why do you think the store is so busy today?”)
What is… (e.g., “What are the most important characteristics of good leaders?”)
What are… (e.g., “What are some ways we could improve this class?”)
In what way…(e.g., “In what way do you think the decision was unfair?”)
If… (e.g., “If you had to come up with a new candy bar, what kind of flavors and textures would it have?”)

The benefits of using open-ended and closed-ended questions

Both open-ended and closed-ended questions can be useful, depending on the situation.

Here are some of the benefits of open-ended questions:

They encourage someone to give you an in-depth answer, which can give you more insight into a situation or idea.
They can make a discussion more engaging and take it in a deeper direction because they encourage people to open up.
They can make the other person feel as though you are genuinely interested in what they think or feel, because open-ended questions give them an opportunity to share whatever is on their mind.
They can make it easier to judge how well someone else understands a concept. For example, if you ask someone to explain a complicated process or tough theory, you’ll probably notice quickly whether they truly understand it or not.

Asking an open-ended question doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get a useful or interesting answer. For example, “How was your vacation?” is an open-ended question. But someone could answer this with a simple “Fine” or “Boring.” However, as a general rule, open-ended questions are a great way of encouraging people to open up.

Open-ended questions are a useful tool, but they aren’t right for every situation. In some cases, you want to ask closed-ended questions instead.

These are the advantages of closed-ended questions:

They can encourage the other person to get to the point quickly, which is useful if you’re talking to someone who tends to ramble or you’re short on time.
They make it easy for someone to pick from a list of options. For example, if you can only offer someone chocolate or vanilla ice cream, it makes sense to say, “Would you prefer chocolate or vanilla?” rather than “What ice cream flavor do you prefer?”
Closed-ended questions are good for making or confirming plans. For example, “Are you free on Saturday evening?” or “Are you still free for lunch at noon today?”
They don’t usually take much time or effort to answer, so they are often good to include in surveys or questionnaires, especially if your respondents don’t have much time to spend sharing their thoughts.
They can be the best questions to ask if you want to collect lots of data from different people. For example, if you ask customers, “Would you use our products again?” with a choice of “Yes,” “No,” and “I don’t know,” it’s easy to gauge roughly how satisfied they are as a group.

In general, it’s best to use open-ended questions in these situations:

You want to understand someone’s thoughts, feelings, reasons, method, or ideas
You want to keep a conversation going
You want to get a general overview of a situation first before honing in on small details
You want to help someone but aren’t sure exactly what they need

On the other hand, closed-ended questions are usually better if:

You need to clarify information quickly
You want to keep a conversation brief
You are more interested in facts rather than feelings

You can also combine a closed-ended question with an open-ended question. Closed-ended questions can help you identify possible topics of conversation, and open-ended questions can help you explore them in more depth.

Let’s look at an example.

“Did you go to college?” is a closed-ended question. But whether the other person answers “Yes” or “No,” you can still follow up with an open-ended question. If they say “Yes,” you could ask, “What were your college days like?” Or, if the answer was “No,” you could ask, “What did you do after graduating high school?”

Open-ended and closed-ended questions to get to know someone

Questions are a great way of getting to know someone. Here are some questions you can ask an acquaintance, new friend, or someone you’re dating to move past the small talk stage.

Remember, closed-ended questions aren’t always bad, but if you want to build a meaningful connection with someone and bond over shared interests and experiences, open-ended questions are usually more effective.

Here are more good questions to ask when you want to get to know someone better.

Open-ended and closed-ended questions to use at work

Clear communication is important in the workplace. Asking the right questions can help improve teamwork, build good professional relationships, and make projects successful. Here’s a list of closed-ended and open-ended questions you can use to get the details you need from your colleagues, managers, and customers.

Here is a list of good icebreaker questions for work .

Open-ended and closed-ended questions for job interviews

Most job interviews are structured around a series of questions. Ideally, these questions should allow both the interviewer and candidate to work out whether the candidate is a good fit for the company and role.

Closed-ended questions allow interviewers to establish facts (e.g., whether the candidate has a degree), whereas open-ended questions provide insight into a candidate’s working style, personality, and ambitions.

Here are some common open and closed-ended questions that come up in job interviews. Most of them are for interviewers, but some might be useful for candidates who want to know more about the company or future manager.

Open-ended and closed-ended questions to ask kids

From a young age, children are usually inquisitive and enjoy asking and answering questions. Even preschoolers may surprise you with some thoughtful and funny answers!

Closed-ended questions can be fun and give you an insight into what your child thinks, and open-ended questions can help build a child’s critical thinking skills and encourage them to think about new possibilities. Try using the following questions as conversation starters.

Closed-ended and open-ended questions to ask teens

Teens often have strong opinions. If you ask them for their thoughts on a subject, you could kickstart a fascinating conversation. Here are a few questions you could try.

Whether you’re asking an open-ended or closed-ended question, these tips may help you get some useful answers.

1. Avoid asking leading questions

When you want to learn what someone really thinks about a topic, you want to avoid leading questions that nudge them towards a particular answer. Before you ask an important question—whether closed-ended or open-ended—ask yourself, “Am I encouraging them to respond in a specific way?”

For example, “Do you like our awesome new coffee machine?” is a leading question because you have already suggested that it’s “awesome.” A less leading question would be, “What do you think of our new coffee machine?” because it doesn’t put so much pressure on the other person to agree.

2. Be careful when asking “Why” questions

Open-ended “Why” questions can be helpful if you want to understand someone’s thought processes or dig deeper into an idea. But they can make some people feel defensive, so think carefully before using them, especially if you’re having a difficult conversation .

For example, if you ask someone, “Why did you do that?” or “Why did you think that was a good idea?” they may feel judged. It would probably be better to ask, “How did you arrive at that decision?”

Viktor is a Counselor specialized in interpersonal communication and relationships. He manages SocialSelf’s scientific review board. Follow on Twitter or read more .

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What is Memorial Day? The true meaning of why we celebrate the federal holiday

For many Americans, Memorial Day is more than a long weekend and an unofficial start to the summer season. The real meaning of the holiday is meant to honor all U.S. soldiers who have died serving their country.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day's history goes back to the Civil War. It was was declared a national holiday by Congress in 1971, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Although Veterans Day in November also honors military service members, Memorial Day differs by honoring all military members who have died while serving in U.S. forces in any current or previous wars.

The late-May holiday has also evolved into an opportunity for Americans to head to the beach or lake , travel to see friends and family , or even catch a Memorial Day parade .

Here's what to know about the history and the reason behind why we observe Memorial Day.

Memorial Day weather: Severe storms could hamper your travel, outdoor plans for Memorial Day weekend

When is Memorial Day?

One of 11 federal holidays recognized in the U.S., Memorial Day is always observed on the last Monday of May. This year, the holiday falls on Monday, May 27.

Why do we celebrate Memorial Day?

The origins of the holiday can be traced back to local observances for soldiers with neglected gravesites during the Civil War.

The first observance of what would become Memorial Day, some historians think, took place in Charleston, South Carolina at the site of a horse racing track that Confederates had turned into a prison holding Union prisoners. Blacks in the city organized a burial of deceased Union prisoners and built a fence around the site, Yale historian David Blight wrote in The New York Times in 2011.

Then on May 1, 1865, they held an event there including a parade – Blacks who fought in the Civil War participated – spiritual readings and songs, and picnicking. A commemorative marker was erected there in 2010.

One of the first Decoration Days was held in Columbus, Mississippi, on April 25, 1866 by women who decorated graves of Confederate soldiers who perished in the battle at Shiloh with flowers. On May 5, 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, the tradition of placing flowers on veterans’ graves was continued by the establishment of Decoration Day by an organization of Union veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic.

General Ulysses S. Grant presided over the first large observance, a crowd of about 5,000 people, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on May 30, 1873.

This tradition continues to thrive in cemeteries of all sizes across the country.

Until World War I, Civil War soldiers were solely honored on this holiday. Now, all Americans who’ve served are observed.

At least 25 places in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. Some states that claim ownership of the origins include Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, according to Veterans Affairs.

Despite conflicting claims, the U.S. Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, New York, as the “birthplace” of Memorial Day on May 30, 1966, after Governor Nelson Rockefeller's declaration that same year. The New York community formally honored local veterans May 5, 1866 by closing businesses and lowering flags at half-staff.

Why is Memorial Day in May?

The day that we celebrate Memorial Day is believed to be influenced by Illinois U.S. Representative John A. Logan, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in November 1858, and served as an officer during the Mexican War.

It is said that Logan, a staunch defender of the Union, believed Memorial Day should occur when flowers are in full bloom across the country, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Army.

Congress passed an act making May 30 a holiday in the District of Columbia in 1888, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

In 2000, the National Moment of Remembrance Act – which created the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance and encourages all to pause at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence – was signed into law by Congress and the President.

What is the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day?

Memorial Day and Veterans Day both honor the sacrifices made by U.S. veterans, but the holidays serve different purposes.

Veterans Day, originally called “Armistice Day,” is a younger holiday established in 1926 as a way to commemorate all those who had served in the U.S. armed forces during World War I.

Memorial Day honors all those who have died.

General Election 2024: What happens now an election has been called?

What is the dissolution of parliament? How does it happen? Are there any MPs during a campaign? What happens on polling day?

Political reporter @alixculbertson

Thursday 23 May 2024 11:08, UK

File photo of a voter placing a ballot paper in a ballot box at a polling station. Pic: PA

Rishi Sunak has called a general election for this summer.

The prime minister has been saying for months he would call a vote for the "second half of the year", and it will now be held on Thursday, 4 July.

Under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, Mr Sunak had until 17 December this year to call an election - as votes must be held no more than five years apart.

Sky News looks at what happens now.

General election latest: Rishi Sunak to call election for 4 July

Requesting permission to dissolve parliament

The prime minister has already requested permission from the King to hold a general election, as the power to dissolve parliament - end the session - legally lies with him.

More on General Election 2024

Mark Logan was elected as the MP for Bolton North East in 2019. Pic: PA/UK Parliament

Conservative Mark Logan defects to Labour - saying 'we need a new government'

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Milton Keynes. Pic: PA

Rishi Sunak challenged over Downing Street COVID parties by man who lost his mother

Beth Rigby interviews Labour's Angela Rayner

Trump trial ends first day of jury deliberations without a verdict

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/ link copied

By Graham Kates , Katrina Kaufman , Olivia Rinaldi

Updated on: May 29, 2024 / 7:42 PM EDT / CBS News

The first day of jury deliberations in former President Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in New York ended without a verdict as jurors asked to review several portions of testimony and rehear the judge's instructions in the case.

The 12 New Yorkers who will decide Trump's fate met for nearly five hours after listening to the judge's directions about how they should wade through the sea of complex legal issues that the case presents.

Justice Juan Merchan reminded them of their commitment to impartiality, and implored them to set aside their biases to decide the case on the facts and the law.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection you agreed that you must set aside any opinions or bias you have in favor of or against the defendant and if you decide this case against the evidence and the law," the judge said. "You must set aside any opinions and bias and you must not allow any opinion or bias to influence your verdict."

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from reimbursements for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen made the payment, and prosecutors say Trump paid him back over the course of his first year in office. Trump is accused of illegally disguising the purpose of the reimbursements to hide the payment to Daniels and has pleaded not guilty.

Toward the end of the day, the jurors asked to review testimony surrounding some of the key allegations in the case, as well as the judge's instructions. They will hear both when court reconvenes on Thursday.

Here's how the first day of deliberations unfolded:

Judge begins delivering jury instructions

Former President Donald Trump attends his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 29, 2024, in New York City.

Court reconvened shortly after 10 a.m. as Merchan took the bench. After settling some housekeeping issues, he began delivering the instructions to the jury.

New York state courts have a standard set of jury instructions for criminal trials, and Merchan hewed closely to those directions. Prosecutors and defense attorneys proposed some alterations during a hearing last week.

"It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours. You and you alone are the judges of the facts, and you and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty," Merchan said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-8b1a66d7 link copied

Judge tells jurors to set aside any bias for or against Trump when reaching a verdict

Merchan reminded the jury that they agreed to set aside their opinions of Trump when they were selected to serve and vowed to decide the case solely on the facts and the law.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-376eddea link copied

Merchan lays out "fundamental principles" that jurors must adhere to

Merchan laid out what he called the "fundamental principles of our law that apply in all criminal trials: the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

He told the jurors that Trump is presumed innocent, and they "must find the defendant not guilty, unless, on the evidence presented at this trial, you conclude that the people have proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," referring to prosecutors. To do so, jurors can consider "all the evidence presented, whether by the people or by the defendant."

Merchan reminded them that they cannot draw a negative conclusion about the fact that Trump did not testify in his own defense, and that he is "not require to prove that he is not guilty."

"The burden of proof never shifts from the people to the defendant. If the people fail to satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant not guilty. And if the people satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant guilty," he said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-b2f24e54 link copied

Judge explains the 2 elements jurors must consider to determine a verdict

After defining the terms in the New York statute that Trump is charged with violating, Merchan told jurors they must focus on two elements of the prosecution's case when weighing Trump's guilt or innocence.

To find Trump guilty, the jury must determine that Trump, acting personally or with others, "made or caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise," and that he did so "with an intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof," echoing the language from the statute. He said the same instructions apply to all 34 counts, each of which correspond to a different business record.

"If you find the people have proven beyond a reasonable doubt each of those two elements, you must find the defendant guilty of this crime," Merchan said. "If you find the people have not proven beyond a reasonable doubt either one or both of those elements, you must find the defendant not guilty of this crime."

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-8199977e link copied

Jury begins deliberations after Merchan finishes instructions

Merchan finished issuing his instructions and dismissed the jury to begin deliberations. He laid out several rules they must adhere to when discussing the case.

"First, while you are here in the courthouse, deliberating on the case, you will be kept together in the jury room. You may not leave the jury room during deliberations. Lunch will of course be provided," he said. "If you have a cell phone or other electronic device, please give it to a court officer or sergeant to hold for you while you are engaged in deliberations."

If jurors have a question, they can submit it in writing to the judge. If a juror wishes to speak to the judge, they must do so in open court with the parties present. He told them he is not allowed to discuss "the facts of the case, or possible verdict, or vote of the jury on any count."

He said they would work until about 4:30 p.m. today if necessary, and no later than 6 p.m. on future days.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-25a100a6 link copied

The "unlawful means" that jurors could consider

In order to find Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, jurors must conclude that he "conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means."

They do not have to all agree on which type of "unlawful means." Merchan explained three that prosecutors put forth:

Violations of the federal elections campaign act, again otherwise known of FECA
Falsification of other business records
Violation of tax laws

For the second one, falsification of additional records, the judge gave several examples of documents that can be considered, beyond the checks, vouchers and invoices at the center of this trial.

They include tax records issued by the Trump Organization to Cohen, bank records associated with two of Cohen's limited liability corporations and records related to a wire sent to Daniels' lawyer.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7744d0b7 link copied

Court publishes judge's jury instructions

The court published Merchan's full set of jury instructions that he read aloud in court Wednesday morning. The 55-page document can be found here .

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-60d50430 link copied

Trump: "Mother Teresa could not beat these charges"

Former President Donald Trump and Todd Blanche speak to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Wednesday, May 29, 2024.

Leaving the courtroom after the jury got the case, Trump spoke for about five minutes, railing against the prosecution and claiming his conviction is a foregone conclusion.

"Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged," he said.

"The whole country is a mess between the borders and fake elections and you have a trial like this, where the judge is so conflicted, he can't breathe. He's got to do his job. And it's not for me, that I can tell you," Trump continued. "It's a disgrace and I mean that. Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we'll see. We'll see how we do."

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-49ce8d63 link copied

The Trump defense's closing argument

Trump did not take the stand in his own defense, and his legal team called just two witnesses, including a lawyer who said Cohen told him Trump knew nothing about the Daniels payment in 2018.

In his closing argument , Trump's lead attorney Todd Blanche argued that Trump did not commit a crime and that the business records at issue were not in fact falsified since Cohen was Trump's personal attorney during that time. Above all, he emphasized that Cohen, the prosecution's key witness, should not be trusted — and that there is no way the jury could find that Trump knew about the Daniels payment "without believing the words of Michael Cohen."

He urged jurors to reject Cohen's testimony, calling him the "GLOAT," or "greatest liar of all time," and the "human embodiment of reasonable doubt." He also cast Cohen as someone who has not only lied under oath in the past, but in this very trial.

Blanche claimed that Cohen lied on the stand about a call to Trump's former bodyguard Keith Schiller, during which Cohen claims to have spoken to Trump about the Stormy Daniels deal. "That is perjury," Blanche told the jury, raising his voice for emphasis.

Regarding the "catch and kill" scheme alleged by the prosecution, Blanche argued that there was nothing illegal going on: "Every campaign is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help somebody win."

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-16d57cba link copied

The basics of the prosecution's case against Trump

As the jury considers its verdict, it's worth looking back on the basics of the prosecution's case against Trump.

Trump is accused of signing off on a scheme to illegally falsify records, with the goal of covering up the $130,000 "hush money" payment made by Cohen to Daniels in 2016. The scheme was designed to subvert election law and keep the payment secret, prosecutors say.

They allege Trump falsely portrayed reimbursements for the $130,000 payment as monthly checks for ongoing legal services, paid over the course of the first year of his presidency. Each of the 34 counts corresponds to a voucher, invoice or check originating from the payments to Cohen.

Through a progression of witnesses, the prosecution began their case by laying out a broader "catch and kill" scheme to suppress negative stories about Trump during the 2016 election.

David Pecker was the CEO of American Media Inc., the parent company of the tabloid the National Enquirer, in 2016. A longtime friend of Trump, Pecker testified about how he, Trump and Cohen devised a plan to prevent damaging stories about Trump from surfacing in the months leading up to the election. The Enquirer also published negative stories about Trump's opponents, and positive stories about him. Pecker said the tabloid would run stories by Cohen before they were published.

Pecker agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign during a meeting in Trump Tower in August 2015, he told the jury. The "catch and kill" effort resulted in three stories being suppressed: those of Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal and Dino Sajudin. AMI bought the rights to McDougal and Sajudin's stories, while Cohen paid Daniels himself.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said that AMI's purchasing of stories on then-candidate Trump's behalf, in coordination with the campaign, amounted to an unlawful campaign contribution. Steinglass said it "turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions that anyone made to the campaign. This may very well be what got Trump elected."

At its core, this is a case about documents, and through witnesses like the Trump Organization's former controller Jeff McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, who handles the company's payroll, the prosecution walked the jury through the allegedly falsified business records and numerous documents that they argue support this contention.

Prosecutors showed bank records, emails, text messages and call logs over the course of the trial. They also showed two documents bearing the handwriting of Allen Weisselberg and McConney, laying out the repayment calculations for reimbursing Cohen, which they called the "smoking guns."

They wove together a timeline of events that they say can only lead to one conclusion: that the business records were falsified with Trump's knowledge, and that this was part of a larger effort to help Trump's candidacy and prevent voters from learning about potentially damaging information before the 2016 election.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7f7081be link copied

Jury sends judge a note asking to review testimony from Pecker and Cohen

At 2:56, a buzzer sounded in the courtroom, the signal that the jury had a message to share. Prosecutors, Trump and his team filed in.

Merchan said the jury foreperson signed a note requesting to hear the following transcript portions:

David Pecker's testimony regarding the phone conversation with Trump while Pecker was in an investor meeting
Pecker's testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to Karen McDougal
Pecker's testimony regarding a meeting at Trump Tower
Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower meeting

The jury will be brought in and seated, and the transcript portions will be read to them. These are moments that were mentioned during the prosecution's closing arguments Tuesday.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-d921080f link copied

The significance of the testimony the jury is asking to review

Former President Donald Trump looks on as David Pecker testifies in front of an image of Trump and Karen McDougal during Trump's criminal trial in New York on Thursday, April 25, 2024.

Each portion of the testimony that the jury wants to hear again concerns a critical moment in the prosecution's narrative.

Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer at the time, testified about receiving a phone call from Trump during an investor meeting in June 2016. An attorney for Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, was shopping her story of having had sex with Trump years earlier, a claim Trump has denied.

"[Trump] said, 'What should I do?'" Pecker said on the stand in April. "I said, 'I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.'"

Pecker said Trump described McDougal as "a nice girl." He said Cohen soon called him and said "you should go ahead and buy this story" and "the boss will take care of it." Pecker said he understood that to mean Trump or the Trump Organization would pay him back.

Months later, Pecker said he reached an agreement to transfer McDougal's life rights to Cohen, but the deal fell through after AMI's general counsel advised against going forward with the transfer.

"I called Michael Cohen and said to him, 'The assignment deal is off. I'm not going forward. It's a bad idea. I want you to rip up the agreement,'" Pecker testified . "He was very upset, screaming basically."

Pecker and Cohen also both testified about a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2015. Pecker said that was the meeting where he agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign and be on the lookout for any negative stories about Trump. Prosecutors argued this was the origin of the "catch and kill" scheme that preceded Pecker paying McDougal $150,000, which they said represented an illegal campaign contribution.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-a70d1cc9 link copied

Jury sends second note asking to rehear judge's instructions

The buzzer rang a second time, and Merchan retook the bench. He said the jurors were requesting to hear his instructions again. He called them back into the courtroom to clarify whether they needed to hear all of the instructions, or just a portion.

Merchan said reading the sections of the transcripts that the jury requested would take about 30 minutes.

He said he didn't need an answer on reading his instructions immediately, and dismissed the jurors from the courtroom for the day.

Merchan said the jury will hear the transcript portions they requested and his jury instructions when court reconvenes at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, meaning the first day of deliberations is ending without a verdict.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-87752ba7 link copied

Lawyers agree on transcript portions for 3 of the requests, but argue about 1

After the jurors left, lawyers for both sides were left to determine which portions of the transcript were responsive to the jurors' requests. The two sides agreed on portions regarding Pecker's testimony about a phone conversation with Trump; his testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to McDougal; and Cohen's testimony about an August 2015 Trump Tower meeting.

They argued, however, over which exact lines satisfied the request for Pecker's testimony regarding that meeting.

At the end of the day, there were still a few lines — out of dozens of pages of transcript — in dispute, and the judge said he would think about them Wednesday evening.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7bb10e19 link copied

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

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The 3 ways Trump's hush money trial could end, as jury deliberations begin soon

Tyler Bartlam

Former U.S. President Donald Trump with attorney Todd Blanche speaks to the media during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments, at Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday in New York City. Curtis Means/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

The hush money trial against former President Donald Trump is nearing its end, but the jury has yet to decide Trump’s fate.

The jury has to consider 34 charges against the Republican nominee. If they find Trump guilty, he could face prison time.

The team at NPR's Trump's Trials podcast spoke to former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman, who breaks down three broad possible conclusions the jury could reach.

1. Trump is found guilty

If the jury finds Trump guilty of all 34 counts, he would be eligible for a prison sentence. But Litman says there's “no chance, as I see it, he’s actually incarcerated before November.”

That’s because sentencing hearings are typically scheduled a few months after the verdict. Litman says even if Judge Juan Merchan chooses to give Trump a couple months in prison, it wouldn’t happen right away. If found guilty, Trump would very likely appeal the decision and any jail time would be stayed while the appeal works its way through the courts, which could take years.

How does Trump's trial end? It may hinge on how jurors feel about sex and privacy

2. it’s a hung jury.

If the jury cannot reach a verdict, the judge will likely declare a mistrial. The Manhattan district attorney can then choose to retry the case with a new jury. But Litman suspects the political calendar would complicate any immediate retrial because it could run up against the November election.

“I think they will retry it, but not until after the election. And of course, once the election happens, all bets are off.”

Litman says he is concerned there could be a hung jury, but adds that this worry is a part of any jury trial. Litman was in the courtroom for several days, allowing him to observe the jury as they listened to testimony. He says he paid close attention to how the jury was following the case, and “I like [the prosecution’s] odds of there not being a holdout juror.”

Litman also points out that Trump might be able to play a mistrial to his advantage and spin it as a victory. Trump has continually claimed, without evidence, that this case is a “witch hunt,” is politically motivated, and is the Democrats’ attempt at interfering with his campaign.

Speaking outside the courtroom last week, Trump said, “This is all about Biden, can’t campaign so he’s trying to injure his opponent. They’re trying to hurt the opponent because they can’t win it fair and square.”

3. Trump is acquitted

If the jury finds Trump not guilty on all 34 counts, the prosecution would be unable to try him again. This would be a major political win for Trump, but Litman believes the chances of acquittal are “zero.”

As the case has progressed, Trump has repeatedly used the drama inside of the courtroom as an incentive to his followers to donate to his campaign. Sending fundraising emails with provocative headlines like “I demand a mistrial!” and “They want me in HANDCUFFS."

When can we expect a verdict?

The jury is expected to start deliberations on Wednesday, at which point they could reach a decision as early as the same day. Litman predicts that Friday afternoon may be the sweet spot.

Deliberations could go into the first week of June. Litman says the longer the jury deliberates, the greater the chance of a mistrial.

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An open-ended question is a question that cannot be answered with a "yes" or "no" response, or with a static response. Open-ended questions are phrased as a statement which requires a longer answer. They can be compared to closed questions which demand a "yes"/"no" or short answer. [1]
Open-ended
Define open-ended. open-ended synonyms, open-ended pronunciation, open-ended translation, English dictionary definition of open-ended. adj. 1. Not restrained by definite limits, restrictions, or structure. 2. Allowing for or adaptable to change. 3. Inconclusive or indefinite: "faintly...
183 Examples of Open-ended vs Closed-ended Questions
Closed-ended questions can be answered with "Yes," "No," or a brief statement of fact. Here's an example of a closed-ended versus open-ended question: Closed question: "Do you like watching action movies?". This is a closed question, because the other person will probably answer "Yes" or "No.". Open question: "What kinds ...
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