This document outlines different types of interview questions: descriptive questions which ask subjects to talk about their own experiences, structural questions which ask subjects to break down their experiences and draw connections, and contrast questions which aim to bring out meaning by having subjects compare and contrast aspects of their experiences. It also discusses follow-up questions which focus on surprising or unusual details and help subjects articulate their reasoning and the rich details of their experiences.

2. TYPES OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Descriptive questions
Structural questions
Contrast questions
FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS

3. DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS
Descriptive questions ask the interview subject to talk about
their experience in their own terms.
For example, imagine that we were interviewing DU students
about how their lives off-campus impacts their lives on
campus as students. We might begin with a group of
descriptive question like these:
Tell me about your favorite thing to do in Denver, off
campus.
Why is this activity your favorite? What do you enjoy about
it?

4. STRUCTURAL QUESTIONS
Structural questions ask the interview subject to break their
experience down and draw connections.
For example, we might ask the (imaginary) student we’re
interviewing about how off-campus life impacts campus life
the following questions:
Walk me through the experience of thatoff-campus activity.
With whom do you interact, and how? Is there a “process” to
the experience, with “steps”? If so, what are they?

5. CONTRAST QUESTIONS
Contrast questions aim to bring out the meaning of the
interview subject’s experience by asking them to compare
and contrast different aspects of their experience, or
compare and contrast the experience under discussion with
some other, similar experience.
For example:
How would you, personally, define the difference between
your on-campus life and your off-campus life? That is, what
does that difference mean for you?

6. FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS
Follow-up questions aim to help the interview subject to
articulate the reasoning behind their responses and/or the
rich details of their experience.
They focus on the surprising, unusual, or otherwise things
that your interviewer says.
Crafting follow-up questions on the spot requires that the
interviewer be able to think on her feet. But there are some
good, simple follow-up questions to have in your back
pocket: “Why?” “Tell me more?” What do you mean by
that?” “What happened next?” and so on.