THE ART OF QUESTIONING
1. The importance of good questioning
Skill in the art of questioning lies at the basis of all good teaching. When we were children it looked so easy for the teacher to sit and ask the questions which we were expected to answer. When we become teachers we find that it is much harder to ask the questions than to answer them. For to question well, one must not only know the subject thoroughly, but must also constantly interpret the mind of the pupil to discover what question next to ask, and whether he is mastering what we are teaching him.
Good questioning stimulates thought, leads to inquiry, and results in understanding and mastery. Poor questioning leaves the mental powers unawakened, cripples thought, and results in inefficiency and lack of mastery.
2. Need of fundamental principles
Good questioning is dependent upon the teacher's having a firm command of a few essential principles which apply to all questioning used in teaching. The teacher's constant self-criticism in the light of these will greatly improve his control of discussion in the class room.
3. The principle of freedom from textbooks
The questions of the recitation must of course deal with the matter of the textbook and be directly suggested by it. Yet there are two dangers to be avoided in this connection: (1) Questions should not follow the language of the text, and (2) the teacher should not be dependent on the textbook to suggest the question itself or to determine the correctness of the answer.
The teacher who has not the lesson well prepared, or who is mentally lazy, has a constant temptation to ask questions in the words of the book. This is much easier than to know the subject and the textbook both well enough to formulate original, appropriate questions. An illustration of what is meant is found in the following account of a recitation conducted from "Montgomery's American History," the lesson being on the landing of the Pilgrims (pp. 77, 78):—
Q. On a morning late in November, what did the Pilgrims do?
A. They sighted Cape Cod.
Q. Two days later, where did the Mayflower come to anchor?
A. In Provincetown Harbor.
Q. While the Mayflower remained at anchor, what did Captain Standish and a boatload of men do?
A. They went out to explore.
Q. On the shore of Plymouth harbor what is there lying?
A. A granite bowlder.
It is seen that each of these questions follows the words of the text, and that the answer but completes the sentence of which the question is a part. Questions of this kind only suggest to the memory the statement of the text, and do not cause the pupil to use his own thought in realizing the actual event. Hence they arouse little interest and leave little impression. They train the verbal memory, but leave imagination, thought, and understanding untouched. How much better such questions as these:—
When did the Pilgrims first sight land?
What land did they see?
What was its appearance?
Have you ever seen a stretch of shore like this one?
Why did not the Pilgrims land at this point?
Where did they finally anchor?
What measures did they take to see whether this was a suitable place to land?
Why is the name "Plymouth Rock" so famous in American history?
These questions cover just the same ground as the ones above, but they suggest living pictures and actual events rather than the language of the textbook.
The unprepared or lazy teacher is also in danger of relying on the textbook for his questions even when he does not formulate them in the language of the printed page. Not infrequently teachers conduct the whole of a recitation with the text open before them, hardly taking their eyes from the book, and seeming to have no inspiration or questions not immediately gleaned from the page before them. In extreme cases of unpreparedness they may even have to test the correctness of the answers given by the class by reference to the text. Of course this is all the highest degree of inefficiency. It should not be called teaching at all, for no one can teach another that which he does not himself possess as a part of his own mental equipment. Nothing can be more deadening to a class than to see a teacher, whom they look upon as their intellectual leader, floundering in such a vain attempt to teach something that he does not himself know.
The eyes and the mind of the teacher must both be free in the recitation—the eyes to look interest and encouragement into the eyes of the class, the mind to marshal the points of the lesson and watch the effects of their presentation on the minds of the pupils. A recitation at its best consists of an animated and interesting conversation between teacher and class. And no conversation can be live and interesting when one of its participants has mind and eyes riveted to a book; for conversation involves an interchange of expression, of spirit, and of personality as well as of words.
It is not meant that a teacher must never have a textbook open before him during a recitation. Often it is not only desirable, but necessary that he should do so; but only for suggestion and reference, and never to supply questions and test answers.
It is certainly much better to have the textbook before one than to teach the lesson after a disconnected and haphazard fashion from lack of familiarity with its points. An excellent substitute for the text, however, is an outline, or plan of the lesson embodying the main points, illustrations, and applications to be made. Such an outline will save the teacher from wandering too far afield in the discussions, will insure unity in the lesson, and make certain that important points shall not be overlooked.
A desirable rule for the teacher to set for himself would be so to prepare for the recitation by mastery of the subject, and by lesson plan or outline, that he does not need to have the textbook open before him when the pupils do not also have their books open. The teacher who will heroically meet this standard will soon find growing in himself a feeling of mastery of his subjects and of joy in his teaching.
4. The principle of unity or continuity in questions
Questions should be so planned that they develop or bring out the unity of the lesson. It is possible for questions to be so haphazard and disconnected that the pupil receives the impression of a series of unrelated facts, rather than a unified and related subject. In good questioning, one question naturally grows out of another, so that the series develops step by step the truth contained in the lesson, and brings it to the mind of the child as a complete whole.
This means that the teacher must know the whole subject so thoroughly that the right questions come to him easily and naturally, and in the right order to bring out the successive steps of the lesson in their logical relations.
The difference between a related series of questions and an unrelated is shown in two lists which follow. Both deal with the same subject-matter, a physiology lesson on respiration. The questions of the first list are not themselves faulty, but there is no continuity among them; one does not grow out of another so as to "develop" the subject in the minds of the class.
What change takes place in the air while in the lungs?
What change takes place in the blood while in the lungs?
How many cubic inches of air will the lungs contain?
How much of this cannot be expelled by breathing out?
How many times do we naturally breathe in a minute?
What are some of the effects of breathing impure air?
How is the oxygen carried by the blood?
What is animal heat?
What is the temperature of the body?
These questions were all answered fairly well by the class, but the answers contained only so many bits of isolated information, and the pupils did not understand the subject after they had recited upon it. Another teacher asked the following questions:
Why must the body have air to breathe?
Of what use is oxygen in the body?
Where does this oxidization, or burning up of worn-out cells, take place?
But how is the oxygen carried to every part of the body and brought into contact with the tissues?
Where do the corpuscles of the blood get their loads of oxygen?
What gas do they give up in exchange for the oxygen?
Where do they get the carbon dioxide?
How does air entering the lungs differ from air leaving them?
What corresponding change takes place in the blood while it is in the lungs?
Explain how the change is effected in each case.
Suppose we breathe air that contains too little oxygen, what will be the effect on the corpuscles?
What will be the effect on oxidization in the tissues?
And what is the effect of poor oxidization on physical vitality?
On mental vitality?
The class that answered these questions not only had the information belonging to each separate question, but also understood the lesson as a whole, because each question grew out of the ones that preceded it, thus making the recitation a unified whole.
5. The principle of clearness
Questions must be made clear, so that their meaning may be understood. This is not always an easy task, and the teacher frequently misses being wholly clear. This is evidenced by the fact that often when a pupil fails to answer a question asked in one way, he can answer it easily when the wording is changed. This means that the difficulty for the pupil existed in the question, and not in the answer.
Clearness in questioning involves three factors: (1) Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of wording; (2) adaptation to the age and understanding of the pupil; (3) reasonable brevity.
a. Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of wording.—This is fundamentally a matter of the use of good English. It requires such a choice and arrangement of words and clauses that there can be no doubt as to the meaning to be conveyed. Assuming a fair command of the language and care in its use, the basis of clearness at this point is thorough mastery of the subject-matter of the questions, so that the teacher himself understands clearly just what he means to ask.
The following illustrations show some questions that are faulty from the standpoint of obscurity of meaning:—
What caused Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863? (Not clear whether question means why did he issue the Emancipation Proclamation at all, or why did he issue it in 1863 instead of at some other time.)
What are the effects of attention to a moving object? (Not clear whether question means effects on the person attending or the effect which the moving of an object has in making itself seen.)
Who chased whom down what valley?
Why has a cat fur and a duck feathers?
b. Adaptation to the age and understanding of the child.—Questions that are perfectly clear to an adult may be hazy or incomprehensible to a child because he does not understand the terms used in the question, or because it deals with matters beyond his grasp. The teacher must keep within the vocabulary of the child in formulating his questions. Where it is necessary or desirable to introduce new words into questions, care must be taken that the child knows fully the meaning of the new terms. A teacher asked a class in elementary physiology, "What measures would you take to resuscitate a person asphyxiated with carbon dioxide?" The class all looked blank. No one seemed to know what to do. It chanced that the superintendent was visiting the school, and he said to the teacher, "Let me try." Then he asked the class, "What would you do for a person who had been smothered by breathing coal gas?" The class brightened up, and every hand was raised indicating readiness to answer the question.
Another teacher bewildered his class by asking, "Which phenomena of the fratricidal strife in the American Republic were most determinative of the ultimate fate of the nation?" No one knew. Had he asked his question in plain terms, no doubt the class could have answered it.
In an elementary history class, a teacher propounded this question: "What American institutions have been founded on the principle of social democracy?" Not only the terms of the question, but the thought also is beyond the comprehension of children. Such questions are not only useless as a means of testing, teaching, or drilling, but serve to confuse and discourage the child, and cause him to lose interest in school.
c. Brevity.—No matter how well a question is worded, or how well it is adapted to the age and capacity of the pupil, it may fail in clearness because it is too long and disjointed, or because it deals with too many points. Far better break a complicated question up into several simple ones, concerning whose meaning there can be no doubt.
A teacher who had not yet mastered the art of questioning asked his physiology class a question somewhat like this: "Do you consider it advisable, taking into account the fact that none of the vital processes go on as vigorously during sleep as during the waking hours (you remember that the breathing and the pulse are less rapid and the temperature of the body also lower), to eat just before retiring at night, especially if one is very tired and exhausted—a condition which still further lowers the vitality and hence decreases the powers of digestion and assimilation, and would your answer be different if it is understood that the food taken is to be light and easily digested?"
It is needless to say that the class found themselves lost in the maze of conditions and parenthetical expressions and did not attempt an answer. The question contains material for a dozen different questions, and probably the class could have answered them all had they been properly asked.
6. The principle of definiteness
Questions should be definite, so that they can have but one meaning. It is possible to ask a question so that its general meaning is clear enough, but so that its precise meaning is in doubt. Such questions leave the pupil puzzled, and usually lead to indirectness or guessing in the answer. Failure to make questions definite, so that they can have but one meaning is responsible for much of the difference of opinion on disputed questions.
Many a stock question upon which amateur debating societies have exercised their talents would admit of no debate at all, if once the question were made definite. For the ground for debate lies in the difference in interpretation of the question and not in the facts themselves. For example: If a cannon ball were to be fired off by some mechanical device a million miles from where there was any ear to hear, would there be any sound? The lack of definiteness here which permits difference of opinion lies in the word "sound." If we add after the word "sound" the phrase, "in the sense of a conscious auditory sensation," the answer would obviously be, No, since there can be no auditory sensation without an ear to hear it. If, on the other hand, instead of the above phrase we add, "in the sense of wave-vibrations in the air," the answer will obviously be, Yes, since the wave-vibrations in the air do not depend on the presence of an ear to be affected by them.
Likewise, in the question, If a man starts to walk around a squirrel which is clinging to the limb of a tree, and if, as the man circles the tree, the squirrel also circles the tree so that he constantly faces the man, when the man has gone completely around the tree, has he gone around the squirrel? Here the indefiniteness lies in the meaning of to "go around." With this indefiniteness remedied, there is no longer any possibility of difference of opinion.
Indefiniteness may come from the use of certain words that from their very nature are indefinite in meaning. Such are the verbs be, do, have, become, happen, and the prepositions of and about. Examples of indefiniteness growing out of such colorless words are found in the following questions, which are types of many asked in our schools daily:—
What does water do when heated? (Expands, evaporates, boils.)
What happens when it lightnings? (Thunder, discharge of electricity, flash.)
What must immigrants coming into this country have? (Money, freedom from disease, character.)
What did Arnold become? (A traitor, a British general, an outcast, a repentant man.)
What is the cow? (A mammal, a quadruped, a producer of milk, butter, and beef; an herbivorous animal.)
What about the Monroe Doctrine? (A dozen different things.)
What of the animals in the temperate zone?
Questions may be so general as to be indefinite. The teacher asks, "Where is Chicago?" The class may answer, "In Illinois on Lake Michigan; in North America; in Cook County." The teacher should know just what answer he desires, and then ask, "In what State; on what continent; on what lake; or in what county?"
Other illustrations of vagueness coming from the use of words of too general a meaning are found in such questions as, What kind of man was George Washington?
When does a person need food?
What do birds like?
All indefinite questions deserve and usually receive an indefinite answer, and hence lead to and encourage guessing. If the answers to such questions as the above are not indefinite, they must be purely memoriter, merely reproducing the words of the text without comprehension of any real meaning.
Indefinite questioning usually comes from a lack of clear thinking on the part of the questioner. The teacher himself does not know precisely what he means to ask, and hence cannot be definite. It is safe to say that the teacher's questions covering a subject will never be any more clear or definite than the subject itself is in his mind. Indeed it is hard for one to be wholly definite in questioning even when he is a perfect master of his subject. Certainly, then, eternal vigilance will be the price of clearness and definiteness on the part of the young teacher who is as yet striving for mastery of what he is teaching.
7. Secondary principles of good questioning
Besides the foregoing fundamental principles underlying the art of questioning, there are a few secondary principles, some of which are of hardly less importance:—
1. Questions should be asked naturally, and in a conversational tone, and not explosively demanded of pupils.
2. Usually the question should be addressed to the entire class and, after all have had a moment to think, some one then designated to answer. The reason for this is obvious. If the one who is to answer is designated before the question is asked, the incentive to the rest of the class to think the answer is greatly lessened.
3. No regular order should be followed in calling on pupils. If such an order is established, the lazy and uninterested ones have a tendency to remain inactive until called upon. By the hit-and-miss method of calling no one knows at what moment he may be the next one, hence there is a strong incentive to attend to the lesson. It is also desirable to call on a pupil occasionally the second time very soon after he has previously been called upon. This prevents him from thinking that as soon as he has recited once he can then safely relax his attention.
4. Inattentive or mischievous pupils should be the mark for frequent questions. If it comes to be known that any inattention is sure to bring questions to the pupil at fault, the battle for attention is half won. There is a strong tendency on the part of the teacher to ask for the answer to a question from those whose eyes show that they are attentive and ready with an answer. While this readiness and attention should be rewarded by giving an opportunity to answer, it must not lead the teacher to neglect those who may need the question more than the more ready ones. The questions should be impartially distributed among the bright and the dull pupils.
5. It is highly important that questions shall be asked so that they demand thought in answering, and usually so that the answer must be given in a full statement. Seldom should a question be asked in such form that a simple Yes or No will answer it. This does not require sufficient thought on the part of the pupil, it permits guess-work, and fails to cultivate ability in expression. Answers that may be given in a word or two, or by Yes or No, may be accepted in rapid drill or review work, and also in the inductive questioning used in developing a new subject, but should be used very sparingly in other places in the recitation.
6. The "pumping" question should not be used. In this type of question, the teacher formulates the answer and leaves only the key word for the pupil to supply. The teacher sometimes goes so far as to suggest the necessary word by pronouncing the first syllable or two of it. A dialogue like the following was heard in one school:—
Q. "Columbus was an ——?"
A. "Explorer."
Q. "No, he was an It——?"
A. "Oh, an Italian."
Such an attempt at teaching would be amusing, were it not so serious for the child.
8. The treatment of answers
The teacher's treatment of the answers given is of hardly less importance than the formulation of the questions themselves. It is to be remembered that the recitation is an interchange of thought and expression between teacher and class. To this end, the response must be mutual. Not alone when the question is being asked is the teacher to be animated and interested, but likewise while the answer is being given. It is neither good pedagogy nor good manners for a teacher to sit unresponsive and inattentive when a pupil is reciting. Not that the teacher needs always to comment on an answer, or say that it is correct; it is rather a matter of manner, of attention and interest to the answer. We find it embarrassing either in a recitation or out of it to talk to a person who seems not to be listening.
Right at this point, however, there lurks an insidious danger. It comes easily and naturally to one to give some sign of assent or disapproval as to the correctness of the answer while it is being spoken. The slightest inclination of the head, the dropping of the eyelids, or a certain expression of the face, comes to be read by the pupil as a signboard to guide him in his statements. This is, of course, all wrong. The teacher should give absolutely no sign while the answer is going on. Thus to help the child leads him to depend on the teacher instead of relying on his own knowledge. It leads to guessing, and so skillful does this sometimes become that a bright but unprepared pupil is able to steer through a recitation guided by the unsuspecting teacher.
Answers should not be repeated by the teacher. This is a very common fault, and a habit that is usually acquired before the teacher is aware of it. The tendency to repeat answers probably arises at first from a mental unreadiness on the part of the teacher. He has not his next question quite ready, and so bridges over the interval by saying over the answer just given by the pupil. It is a method of gaining time, but really finally results in great loss of time in the recitation. By actual count, many teachers have been found to repeat as many as 75% of the answers given in the recitation. Besides the great waste of time, the repetition of answers is a source of distraction and annoyance to pupils. No one enjoys having his words said over after him constantly. Of course answers may sometimes need to be repeated to emphasize some important point. But when repetition has become a habit, no emphasis is gained by the repetition.
Finally, answers should be required in good English, clear and definite, like the questions. Pupils who say, "An improper fraction is 'where' the numerator is greater than the denominator"; "A compound sentence is 'when' it has two or more independent clauses," should be led to restate their answers in clear and correct language.