An experiment to develop the ability of students to ask meaningful questions - Shwab Choudry

Research and Development Focus
My focus was on passive and disengaged learners and I wanted to investigate the ability to challenge higher order cognitive thinking through questioning as a way to impact on passivity.

Questioning is perhaps one of the most vital adaptive skills to acquire for any individual. As defined in the Oxford dictionary, questioning is a matter which requires resolution or discussion (Oxford dictionary, 2017). If the right questions can provoke meaningful discussions pupils thinking and engagement can be supported. Therefore the effective use of questioning can help create challenges which can engage students as well as help students retain knowledge.

However, one of the problems which lay among students, is that many do not feel confident in asking questions. Other than the obvious reason that “questioning is a type of thinking some children find hard” (Board & Cross, 2014) it is in fact, the mindset of the pupils who get the impression that questioning irritates those who are in authority such as parents and teachers making them feel as if their questions are inappropriate to ask. It can be argued that students do not know how to ask pertinent questions and therefore this can act as a barrier between teachers and students (Schell, 1998). However, students have this notion built into them that asking questions can lead to embarrassment and the fear of being ridiculed (Schell, 1998). These could be some of the reasons to why a lot of the students are passive when it comes to putting their hands up to ask and answer questions.

How can we help students generate more meaningful questions?

Barriers to Student-Generated Questioning
There are many reasons why students are not encouraged to question. Teachers may need control and may feel pressure to cover established course content. If answering student questions takes too long, leads teachers away from their material, or requires teachers to enter content areas outside of their expertise, teachers may consciously or subconsciously discourage student-generated questioning.

Furthermore, some students have learned not to ask questions because those in authority such as teachers or parents have given the impression that questions are irritating or inappropriate. A history of receiving empty responses that are simply restatements of the question also inhibits students from questioning. In addition to prior experiences, students' decisions to ask questions are influenced by peer pressure, embarrassment, and fear of ridicule.

Not knowing how to ask pertinent questions can also act as a barrier. Natural inquisitiveness may be inhibited by current educational practices. Typically, students are comfortable asking nonacademic questions such as "What pages should we read in the book?" or "Will this be on the test?" but need guidance, time, and practice to develop their ability to use higher-level questioning. Students may also be accustomed to the use of questions from textbooks, student guides, and teacher guides in which experts identify problems and ask questions rather than having students doing so.

Intervention
I will be using a question grid which can support students to formulate questions during discussion activities. The grid has been structured to follow Bloom's taxonomy levels of questioning; acting as a classification system which assists teachers and students in recognising various levels of question asking. It is a 6x6 grid with the first 6 columns containing the questions who, what, when, why, where and how, and on the second part, there are six rows within a specific type of questions that prompts the user to ask different style of question. Inside the grid it gives an indication of how you might start a sentence with the question for example; ’when can it be….’ The further down the column and row the more challenging the question becomes.

An example of a question matrix that can be used to help students generate questions.

I will be using my year 10 business class as a sample group as it has a mixture of boys and girls with different cognitive abilities and contains several passive learners. I will use the resource with a plenary game called ‘tell me, show me!’. This game consists of students writing down a question on a piece of paper and at the back, they would write or discuss the answer to it.  Students will use the grid to manipulate their questions.

I hope that during this activity many of the passive students will engage with the question setting and the discussions that can follow.

Implementation and impact

1 = Not confident
5 = Very confident

At the end of the trial I gave a questionnaire to the pupils for them to respond to in order to identify whether or not they had found the resource useful and their confidence in using it. The students response was largely positive. However, a large proportion of the class responded with a neutral or negative answer. Through further discussion I found out that some students saw it as just another task not a resource that promoted thinking or engagement. In addition to this higher ability students reported that they already felt confident in formulating their own questions and the resource became irrelevant. Nevertheless, with the passive students it did provide a way for them to engage in meaningful discussions as it helped the majority of these students in becoming more confident in participating in group discussion. They also reported that they enjoyed the activity and thought it was a fun and engaging exercise.

Further Research:
I feel there is enough evidence to suggest that the use of my question resource can engage learners. I would like to continue to use the question grid in different learning situations and assess the impact on different groups such as passive learners or lower ability students.

Recommendations

• Questioning when used effectively can engage passive learners.
• Encouraging students to formulate their own questions, using a resource like the one I have used, can encourage meaningful discussion and therefore engagement in a task.
• Encouraging students to create their own questions also encourages independence and ownership over a piece of learning.

References
Denscombe, M (2010) The Good Research Guide, OUP
Kolbs learning theory (1984) cited online.(accessed 23.04.17)
Berger, W. (2014). A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.
Wiederhold, C., & Kagan, S. (2007). Cooperative Learning and Higher Level Thinking: The Q-Matrix. San Clemente: Hawker Brownlow Education.