Tip Thursday: What to Do with Subjective Questions

Not all questions are quite this... objective.

As many of you have noticed, some textbooks ask some pretty subjective questions. For instance, a business communications text might ask you to create an email or an ethics book might ask your opinion on an ethical issue. Even a math book may ask a question that involves you thinking more deeply and critically. Per our post on the topic, yes, some of these problems are unsolvable. But not ALL of them are unsolvable. Let's clear up the distinction between a solvable opinion-based question and an unsolvable one.

What is unsolvable:
A problem is unsovable if it is not only personal, but asks you to...
a) work in a group
b) look up OUTSIDE SOURCES
c) refer to other resources to answer it
d) refer to the textbook and use their content in some highly specific way (see below)

This is an example of an unsolvable question:

"Convert Table 2.2 on page 41 to presentation slides so that the content is easily readable in a large conference room. Decide whether to use free-form or structured slides and decide how much content will be on the slides and how much will be spoken by the presenter. Provide speaker's notes along with your slides."

You can't solve this because it asks you to convert something directly from the book. Now, it would be possible to solve this if you just had to talk generally about how to split up the content and how to present the slides. Then you could talk more generally.

Pretty much everything else is solvable.

What is solvable: 
You'd be surprised how many of these types of questions we consider to be solvable. Think about the question from the student's perspective. If you needed help on this problem, what kind of help would you seek out? You likely wouldn't want to read someone else's opinion or a cut-and-dry answer. That wouldn't help one bit. Rather, you'd want to read what types of things to consider, what key ideas to include, and what a proper conclusive answer might look like. You can certainly offer an example of a personal opinion as well.

So a question is still solvable even if it asks for you to think about a concept in-depth (i.e. "What do ethics mean in the context of XYZ" or "What do you think is the appropriate response to an ethical dilemma?").

Some examples of solutions that are solvable and how the authors approached them in a few different disciplines. If you have examples of your own you'd like to share, please send them to me via email! I'd love to share them with the group.

Sample Subjective Question - Business 2

Business Sample - Ethics

A Note on Unsolvable Problems

Ever find yourself frustrated by a problem that you can't solve?  No, not that you don't want to solve (because we know that just doesn't happen), but that you actually can't solve?  Carrie and I have put together a list of reasons why we'd consider a problem unsolvable.  If you ever find yourself confronted by a problem(s) that meets this criteria, please email your project manager with a list of the problems you consider unsolvable.  You can easily do this by copying and pasting the problems from your solution list into a new Excel document.  Just a heads up, if you find yourself intensely staring at your screen for any period of time over ten minutes, take a look at this list to see if you can save yourself the headache.

• Web Based
• When a problem requires the use of a website.
• Activity/Observation Based
• If a question is based on an observation or the completion of a physical activity.
• Data Insufficient Questions
• If there is not enough information in a question for it to be solved.
• Experiment Based
• If a problem requires you to conduct an experiment in order to arrive at your own unique answer.
• Project Based
• If you are required to work on a project over a noted period of time that will result in a unique answer.
• Software Dependent
• When you are asked to solve a problem using software that is no longer available.  If the software is available and you don't have access to it, please consult your project manager before attempting to purchase any kind of software.  Chegg may not reimburse for it.
• Questions Involving Data Collection
• If a question asks you to compile and show large amounts of data from either real life or online sources in order to arrive at an answer.
• Opinion-Based or Personal 
• If the question asks you to give your opinion on something or relate it to a personal experience, you do not need to solve the problem. This is different, though, than if a business text were to ask you to think through an ethical dilemma or something of that nature. You should approach those in a more general way.