What type of data do open questions provide?

Open questions are designed to gather detailed and expansive responses, allowing individuals to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions in their own words. This format encourages variability in responses, leading to rich, descriptive data that captures the nuances of participants' perspectives. As a result, the information derived from open questions is classified as qualitative data.

Qualitative data is inherently non-numeric and focuses on understanding concepts, experiences, or phenomena. It provides insights into motivations, beliefs, and attitudes, which are not easily quantifiable, unlike quantitative data that involves measurable attributes and can be expressed numerically. Choices categorized as quantitative represent numerical data, categorical data refers to distinct groups or categories without a numeric relationship, while binary data consists of two distinct values, such as yes/no or true/false. In contrast, open questions excel at offering qualitative insights into richer and more complex human experiences.