Probes Questions

Probes Probes are also questions or comments that follow up on something already asked. It is virtually impossible to specify these ahead of time because they are dependent on how the participant answers the lead question. This is where being the primary instrument of data collection has its advantages, especially if you are a highly sensitive instrument. You make adjustments in your interviewing as you go along. You sense that the respondent is onto something significant or that there is more to be learned. Probing can come in the form of asking for more details, for clarification, for examples. Glesne and Peshkin point out that “probes may take numerous forms; they range from silence, to sounds, to a single word, to complete sentences”. Silence, “used judiciously…is a useful and easy probe—as is the bunched utterance, ‘uh huh, uh huh,’ sometimes combined with a nodding head. ‘Yes, yes’ is a good alternative; variety is useful”