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.