How Should We Start?

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Some psychologists believe that we should begin a debriefing with a very general question that allows the participant to express whatever they were thinking or feeling about the study. An example of this type of opening question is "How did it go?" or "Any questions about the experiment?"

Others believe that this type of opening question is too general and unlikely to yield any useful information. They prefer a question such as "As you were going through the experiment, did you have any ideas about the specific things we were trying to discover in the study?" or "Was there anything in the experiment that made you think that we were studying something other than visual processing (insert the general description you provided at the beginning of the study)?

There is no one way to do a debriefing. You might want to try different formats in a pilot study before you select a particular strategy. I always begin with a simple "Thank You." That conveys your gratitude and gives them an opportunity to spontaneously express any thoughts about the study.