From Ha-Ha to a-HA!: Using Humor to Transform Nursing Education by Shirley K. Trout, PhD, MEd

Probing Questions: The perfect set-up for a nursing joke!

Okay, readers. This month I’m taking a risk. I need to discuss the concept of “probing questions,” but I’ve been around enough nurses to know that simply saying the word, “probing,” sends them off into a world OB nurses and proctologists know all-too-well.

Perhaps I could use the alternative term, “open-ended.” But, again, my mind jumps directly to hospital gowns.

This is a real distraction!

Jumping in, regardless: 6 core questions

Despite my mental images of all the take-offs you’re going to launch into, it is important that nurse educators be fully armed with one of the most powerful teaching techniques available for the professional educator: asking probing (open-ended/higher-order) questions. By open-ended, we mean those that cannot be answered by a simple yes/no or fact. By higher-order, we mean those that cause a person to think and to integrate a range of information in the generation of their answer.

Have you ever stopped to realize that there are only six types of questions? That’s right. SIX. Regardless of what words a person chooses to use, you are always trying to get at six questions or some derivative of them: who, when, where, what, how and why. (more…)