What is a disadvantage of open questions?

• A. They produce numerical data easily
• B. They ensure unambiguous interpretation
• C. They require no time to answer
• D. Harder to analyse

Answer: (D)

Open questions invite responses in the participants’ own words, which gives rich, detailed information. But that variety makes analysis more complex: you have to read through many unique answers, develop a coding scheme to identify themes, and possibly quantify how often those themes appear. The process is time‑consuming and can be subjective, since different researchers might code the same response differently, leading to reliability concerns. All of this makes analysing open-ended answers harder than analysing fixed, numerical or yes/no responses.