Questioning By: Shuhudha Rizwan (2007)

What is a question? A question is a sentence, which has an interrogative form or function In the classroom, questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content or directions that need to be followed.

Why ask questions? To develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons To develop students’ critical thinking skills. To review and summarize previous lessons To assess achievement goals and objectives of the lesson. To keep students actively involved in the lesson To manage the class.

How to ask questions effectively? Plan key questions to provide structure and direction to the lesson. Phrase the questions clearly and specifically. Avoid vague and ambiguous questions. Adapt questions to the level of the students' abilities Ask questions logically and sequentially Ask questions at various levels Follow up on students' responses Give students time to think after they are questioned

Types of Questions There are five basic types of questions: Factual Convergent Divergent Evaluative Combination

Factual questions Asking reasonably simple, straight forward answers based on obvious facts or awareness. These are usually at the lowest level of cognitive or affective processes and answers are frequently either right or wrong. Example: Name the first nation state of the world?

Convergent Questions Answers to these types of questions are usually within a very finite range of acceptable accuracy. These questions can be at several different levels of cognition (comprehension, application, analysis) In this sort of questions, answerer may have to make inferences or conjectures based on personal awareness, or on material read, presented or known. Example: While carrying out the experiment on the conditions necessary for rusting, the nails in the test tube with boiled freshwater may start rusting (which is not expected to happen). If the students are asked to reason out the cause of this, he/she must make simple inferences as to why that happened because the direct answer is not there in the book.

Divergent Questions These questions allow students to explore different possibilities and create many different variations and alternative answers. Correctness of the answers may be based on logics and may be contextual, or arrived at through basic knowledge, guess work, inferring, projecting, creating, or imagining. These types of questions often require students to analyze, synthesize, or evaluate a knowledge base and then project or predict different outcomes. Example: In the story of ‘Foolhudhigu Handi’, what might have happened to Aminaabee if Hassan Thakuru didn’t come to help her?

Evaluative Questions These types of questions usually require sophisticated levels of cognitive and/or emotional judgment. In attempting to answer evaluative questions, students may be combining multiple logical and/or affective thinking process, or comparative frameworks. Often an answer is analyzed at multiple levels and from different perspectives before the answerer arrives at newly synthesized information or conclusions. Examples: Compare and contrast the characteristics of reef fish and deepwater fish!