QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE

QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE

The questioning is a technique as well as method of teaching. It is given by Socrates. It serves various purpose in the teaching learning situation. Questioning is also an important teaching skill. An effective teacher employs questioning technique appropriately & also prepares good questions. Characteristics of questioning are as follows:

a)    Exploring the entering behavior of the learners.

b)    Provides motivation & encouragement.

c)    Makes them active in the class room.

d)    Establishes a chain of learning by linking previous knowledge with new knowledge.

e)    Provides the direction to the mental process of learning.

f)     Develops thinking & analytical abilities of the learners.

g)    Revise the teaching content.

h)   Evaluate the effectiveness of teaching learning.

Types of questions             

1.    Introductory questions – these are used in introducing new topic or lesson to the students. The introductory questions are based on the previous knowledge which is related new knowledge. These questions employ from known to unknown maxim of teaching.

2.    Developing questions – after introducing new topic, some questions are asked to develop the new content. It employs from logical to psychological technique of teaching.

3.    Recapitulatory questions – in the learning process law of practice or law of exercise plays a significant role in teaching new content. These type questions provide the situations to practice the learned content. The question serves three purposes:

o   To consolidate the learners new knowledge.

o   To organize the ideas of facts at proper place.

o   To provide well organized situation of the content.

4.    Evaluation questions – at the end of lesson the teacher puts questions to test the knowledge of the learners to assimilate whatever they could learn the content. Generally oral questions are asked. These are short answer type. Sometimes these questions are helpful to diagnose the weakness of learning. Remedial instruction can be provided to learner by the teacher. It also function a feed back to the teaching learning process.

Another way to classify questions

Close and Open Questions

Close questions accept only a narrow range of responses and the number of responses is limited. Close questions expect convergent thinking. Some close questions allow only one “correct” or “right” answer. Answers to some close questions are “yes” or “no”.

Open questions emphasize divergent thinking and can accept a wide range of responses. The number of answers to an open question may be two or more. Open questions encourage pupils to use their past experience and justify their opinions/thinking. It is important for teachers to choose whether to use close or open questions depending on the teaching contexts.

Low and High Order Questions

Questions can be classified depending on whether they are low order or high order. Examples of low order questions are perceiving questions (based on observation) and recall questions (based on knowledge or memorisation of facts).

High order questions encourage pupils to think rather than just to remember some facts that they have previously acquired. Those questions often require higher cognitive level. It is important to note that it does not mean high order questions are always better than low order questions. After putting pupils’ understanding and contents of the lesson into consideration, a well-balanced mixture of these questions is needed.

Characteristic of good questions

An effective teacher should be able to construct & use good questions. Preparation of good question requires insight, experience, mental ability & awareness of teaching problems. Teaching is a very social & dynamic activity. A teacher should have the full understanding of good questions.

·         The language of questions should be simple & easily understandable.

·         The form of the questions should be straight forward. There should not be any ambiguity.

·         The questions should have the definite meaning.

·         The questions should be in logical sequence. It should be psychologically workable.

·         The questions should be thought provoking.

·         The questions should serve the purpose of teaching learning.

·         The questions should have utility from learners & content point of view.