Final answer:
The main disadvantage of closed-ended questions is that they limit respondents from providing detailed, nuance-rich answers, potentially leading to loss of valuable qualitative information and biased or inaccurate data due to response limitations.
Step-by-step explanation:
The disadvantage of closed-ended questions is that they limit the respondent's ability to provide detailed answers. Unlike open questions, which allow for a wide range of subjective, qualitative responses, closed-ended questions restrict answers to predefined choices, which may not fully capture the respondent's true opinions or the nuance of their perspectives. While closed-ended questions are beneficial for generating quantitative data that is easy to compare and analyze, they do not provide the rich, detailed information that open-ended questions can yield. In some instances, the wording of closed-ended questions might also introduce bias, affecting the respondent's ability to answer honestly.
Closed-ended questions can be efficient for collecting data from a large number of respondents, but they may not accurately capture complex opinions or behaviors because they do not allow for elaboration. Additionally, closed-ended questions may suffer from issues like response bias, where respondents might not provide their true opinions, either due to the desire to present themselves in a favorable light or because they misremember or misunderstand the question.