The people you involve in your evaluation – engineers and members of your public audiences – are often reluctant to be entirely honest with you. At other times they lack the motivation to reflect deeply enough on the questions you ask.
Sometimes they will omit crucial details. At other times they will place a misleading emphasis – under or over stating something. And sometimes they just say outright untruths.
This guide suggests ways of encouraging your engineers and public audience to give you more thoughtful and candid answers. We need to start by reflecting on why people sometimes tell lies – and that includes you and me.
Why we lie
There are many reasons why people are less than truthful when they fill in a questionnaire or when they take part in a survey or interview. It is useful to reflection upon the times you have told untruths: what was motivating you to do that?
People tell lies – or at least are economical with the truth – because they:
- Are concerned they will upset the interviewer if they tell the truth
- Fear the interviewer, or their companions, will think badly of them if they gave an honest response
- Do not wish to admit something to themselves
- Hope that withholding information will bring the interview to a swifter end
- Simply lack the motivation to properly think about the question, and just saying the first thing that pops into their head
When it comes to your evaluation some of these issues can be addressed by building a rapport with the interviewee. For example by clearly explaining why the evaluation is being done; reassuring them that you really want to hear about things that didn’t meet their expectations; that you won’t be offended if they disliked something; that you are not testing their knowledge.
Take care to read questions in a neutral tone of voice, helps to avoid inadvertently suggesting which answer to choose. And conduct interviews and surveys at a time and place that is comfortable and convenient for interviewees. That way they are not desperate to finish it and move on.
You can also design questions that are more likely to elicit honest and thoughtful responses. We provided some examples below. For more on designing good questions see Questions to use and questions to avoid using
Questions more likely to get honest responses
The third man question
People are more willing to admit to failings if they can describe them in the third person. Consider these questions from an interview with school teachers:
Q1. “What problems do you encounter teaching literacy to your students?”
Q2. “From your experience, what problems do teachers have teaching literacy?”
With the first question the teacher would have to admit to their own short-comings, however understandable those may be. In the second question, they can describe these same failings but attribute them to teachers in general. The second version allows the interviewee to protect their dignity and self-esteem.
The Cher question - If I could turn back time
Instead of asking “what did you dislike about this workshop?” or “what was your least favourite part of the workshop?” it is often more effective to ask …
“When we run this workshop again, how could we improve it? What could we add or change to make it better?”
Instead of criticising what has happened, the interviewee can suggest positive changes that could be applied in the future. They are still clearly identifying things that fell short of their expectations, but they are doing so in a constructive manner without implicit blame.
Columbo’s question “Just one more thing…”
By the end of an interview, you will have built a rapport with the interviewee and both of you will be more relaxed, knowing that it is almost finished. This is a great opportunity to seek out more candid responses. The last question you ask is an opportunity to reveal the purpose behind the research – what you are trying to discover, why this study has been undertaken, why you have been asking these questions. Rather than a lame ‘do you have any more comments’ we recommend asking something along the lines of:
“The reason we are conducting this survey is that we want to find out whether teachers … Do you feel this was true for yourself? Tell me more about that”
“We’re undertaking this research because we're concerned that people might … Do you feel this is something that might be happening? Tell me more about that”
“What we’re trying to find out is … what do you feel about this?
“Some people have found that …. How do you feel we should tackle those issues?”
It is surprising the number of times this type of question elicits interesting responses that the interviewee was holding back, concerned this was not what you were seeking.
Be direct – the power of a closed question
Simply asking a closed question – where people must choose an answer from a pre-set menu of options, often elicits more truthful responses. It is harder to lie when you have to consciously select a response you know is false. By contrast, failing to mention important details in response to an open-ended question, is a lot easier on the conscience.
Imagine you were buying a house. Which of these questions do you think is more likely to elicit the most honest answer?
“Tell me the history of this house”
“Has this house ever been flooded?”