Teachers' Questions: can they support understanding and higher-level thinking?

Newton, L.D.

Abstract

The potential of questioning to support learning is widely recognised. When teachers ask questions the assumption is that they (the questions) do something useful and, what is more, the more questions asked, the more good they do. Perhaps this is why research tells us that teachers ask a lot of questions during their lessons (e.g. Cotton, 1989; Newton, L., 1996; van Lier, 1998). Sometimes lessons can appear to be nothing but questions. Mohr (1998) noted teachers asking about 100 questions per hour and Brualdi (1998) recorded 300-400 questions per teacher per day. Yet Walberg (1984) placed questioning only 17th in a list of 35 instructional strategies for effectiveness. Similarly, Hattie (2009), in his meta-analyses of research relating to achievement, found questioning to be one of the mid-range strategies for effectiveness, with a d value of 0.461. Why is this the case? Perhaps the answer lies not with the quantity of questions but with their nature and purpose.

Citation

Newton, L. (2013). Teachers' Questions: can they support understanding and higher-level thinking?

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 2, 2015
• Journal: Research journal. = Journal de recherches
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 6-17
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1466256
• Publisher URL: http://www.ecolint.ch/sites/default/files/document_files/research_journal_2013_vol_1_0.pdf