287 – 287 - Classroom Teaching and Pedagogy
Asking Great Questions: Part of a Theory of Communication in Interdisciplinary Collaborations
Eric Alfred Vance
University of Colorado Boulder
The questions we ask and the way in which we ask them can make all the difference in how successful we are in meetings, in collaborations, and in our careers as statisticians and data scientists. What makes a question good and what makes a good question great? In this paper, we develop a theory for asking great questions that elicit information useful for accomplishing the tasks of a collaborative project and also strengthen the statistician-domain expert relationship. We deconstruct asking great questions into three parts: the question, the answer, and the paraphrasing of the answer to create shared understanding. We discuss three strategies for asking great questions: preface questions with statements about the intent behind asking the question, follow the question with behaviors and actions consistent with the prefaced words including actions such as listening, paraphrasing, and summarizing; and model a collaborative relationship via the asking of a great question. We provide practical guidelines for learning these skills so that statisticians can improve their statistical collaboration skills and thus increase their impact to help address societal challenges.