Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, John O'Flahavan at Maryland did a series of investigations on teacherless discussion groups, including a really nifty dissertation at Illinois.  Also a lot of the work that Taffy Raphael and her colleagues and students did around Book Club was, at heart, as much about apprenticing students in the art of asking questions, especially "Fat, Juicy Questions," as it was about anything else.

Thanks David - I had forgotten O'Flahavan (thank you) and will include Raphael's right there/in my head Book Club questioning framing.  Are you aware of any recent studies that examine student questioning in whole class teacher present contexts? (I am looking at this) - even if just part of the study-- there are some tallies of student questioning mentioned (Juzwik)  but seems to me there should be some studies out there ...

Read this one:

Kong&Pearson.2003.RTE.RoadtoParticipation

pdp

I think Alison King has studied questioning with both present and absent teachers.

Maybe you can find something of interest in the following articles:

Beck, T. A. (1998). Are there any questions? Teaching and teacher education, 14 (8), 871-886.

Berry, J. W. & Chew, S. L. (2008). Improving learning through interventions of student-generated questions and concept maps- Teaching of Psychology, 35, 304-312.

thank you - i will read both of these - very helpful

Hi Maureen

I have conducted several studies specifically looking at the field of student questioning and found that only the very capable students were able to use socratic questioning or when socratic questioning was embedded as part of a whole school programme.  Here are my studies that may be useful:  Like Nystrand, I believe the best questions are uptake and high level questions such as analysis, speculation and generalisation.

Davies, M., & Meissel, K. (2015). The use of Quality Talk to increase critical analytical speaking and writing of students in three secondary schools. British Educational Research Journal, n/a-n/a. 10.1002/berj.3210

Other University of Auckland co-authors: Kane Meissel

Davies, M., & Sinclair, A. (2014). Socratic questioning in the Paideia Method to encourage dialogical discussions. Research Papers in Education, 29 (1), 20-44. 10.1080/02671522.2012.742132

Other University of Auckland co-authors: Patricia Anne Sinclair

Davies, M., & Sinclair, A. (2013). The effectiveness of on-line discussions for preparing students for a Paideia Seminar. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22 (2), 173-191. 10.1080/1475939X.2013.773719

Other University of Auckland co-authors: Patricia Anne Sinclair

Hi Maureen,

This is a current issue in the UK, where we have seen a move from a curriculum tested by criterion referencing to one that is tested through norm referencing. The theories the test writers employed were largely around Bloom's taxonomy.  I teach a pedagogy course to serving teachers and much of this is around asking questions that deepen students' cognitive development. Gordon Stobart (IOE, London) says that, by the time a teacher has taught for 14 years, they have asked a million questions. Of these, 60% are recall only (ie Bloom 1 or 2) and, scarily, 20% are process (have you got a pencil?!) This leaves around 20% of questions that might be sufficiently challenging. John Hattie (Visible Learning) says that, when primary / elementary teachers ask a child a question, they take five seconds to answer and use three words. So, what does this tell us about the quality and efficacy of their questions?  Stobart has written an excellent book, 'The Expert Learner - challenging the myth of ability', which includes a useful discourse around questioning. I find that Doug Lemov's 'Teach like a Champion 2.0' provides some excellent practical guidance for teachers. I am hoping to run some small scale research with a group of teachers on deepening questioning, using Bloom's taxonomy but this is in the early stages of planning.

John

thanks Maree - I am looking forward to reading these papers.  Thanks John - please keep me apprised about your forthcoming study

best

m

One of my favorites: 

Oliveira, A. W. (2010). Improving teacher questioning in science inquiry discussions through professional development. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47, 422-453.

The Right Question Institute in the US seem to be very active in this field.

Hi Maureen,

This one might also be relevant for you:

Chin, C., & Brown, D. (2002). Student-generated questions: A meaningful aspect of learning in science. International Journal of Science Education, 24 (5), 521-549.

Sonja

This seems like an interesting and increasingly important subject area.  Is anyone interested in writing a review article critically examining the research published to date, identifying any gaps and also the potential areas for future research?  

4/14/16

See John Hattie, Visible Learning for Teachers, Routledge, 2012.  The effect size for questioning is ES = 0.48.  See pages 82 - 85 and his Appendix C.  His book is based on the largest study of education in the history of the world.  The book will become a classic in pedagogy.  Hattie is quoted at numerous national and international conferences.  I quoted him/his book several times at a recent national science presentation.

thank you Sonja and William - will consult both these works. James - yes - review article needed.

There was an excellent session at AERA with Reznitskaya, Catherine O'Connor, and others that focused on dialogic pedagogy across the disciplines. The authors discussed codes for student interaction that included references to other students' comments, questioning the teacher about content, evaluating and questioning arguments by peers/teacher/author.

thanks Sharon -- I will contact Cathy -- am not at AERA this year

Maureen: I reviewed this work in 2008/2009 for an encyclopedia of classroom learning. Because it was for an encyclopedia, it was quite brief and condensed. I just added it to RG but I will send you the original pdf, which is easier  to read.

awesome Ian-- thank you.

HI Shannon

I can never go to AERA because I teach a Secondary Grad Diploma during this time.  I am deeply disappointed I didn't attend the dialogic pedagogy session and would welcome any notes, powerpoints, articles from it.

I will be conducting a study in senior secondary in the next two years examining dialogue between students who have been training in aspects of critical thinking for those interested in secondary.

Best, Maree

This article might be helpful:

Chin, C. & Osborne, J. (2008).  Students' questions:  A potential resource for teaching and learning science. Studies in Science Education, 44, 1-39.

thank you Nancy- right on topic

best

maureen

Hi Maree, Here is the list of speakers from that session: Hilda Borko, KC Busch, Evan Fishman, Allen Harbaugh, Katharina Kiemer, Maria LaRusso, Susan Million, Joe Oyler, Ann-Kathrin Pehmer, Kristin Bourdage Reninger, Tina Seidel, Anita Tseng, Ian Wilkinson, Alexander Gröschner, Catherine O'Connor, Jonathan Osborne, Alina Reznitskaya. Great session on classroom discourse! (Sorry, Maureen, as it went far beyond student questions only.)

We have been conducting research on student questioning in science education here at our institute. It is also the research topic of my PhD thesis which I am presently pursuing here. We are interested in student talks/discussions/arguments and investigation/explorations initiated by students’ authentic questions (questions for which they do not know the answers). We have explored different settings/contexts for engaging students in discussions and investigations with minimal teacher guidance particularly during question generation process. We have been looking at literature related to student questioning, student talk, student argumentation, classroom discourse and related topics and have compiled a list of the references in Zotero. You can go to this link https://www.zotero.org/groups/student_questioning or search ‘student questioning’ in groups in Zotero.org. Here we have a list of around 185 references, many of which are on student questioning. People who have done work on student questioning include James T. Dillon, Christine Chin, Alison King, Hans Van Der Meij, Jonathan Osborne and Arthur C. Graesser.

Do you know who are the people those are presently working on student questioning? If you know, please share the information with me. Also if you can suggest some conferences on related topics where I can present my work, it will be helpful to me. If you are interested knowing more about my work, we can interact further.

Hi Gurinder

i have a paper in JLR (2015) on teacher questioning that may be of interest - am interested in working more on STUDENT questioning --have data on this- maybe a symposium at AERA 2018- proposals already in for 2017?  Anyone else working on student questioning and interested in an AERA symposium?

best

maureen

Yes, definitely. I can contribute at senior secondary level (ages 15-18), mostly in English curriculum and some Geography.  The study is currently being conducted in Auckland, New Zealand and I will have analysed results for student questioning in time for AERA 2018.

Best, Maree

Brilliant so Maree and I are interested and we each have data on student questioning --  others?

I am very much interested. I have quite a data on student questioning, involving middle school students, doing science explorations initiated by their own authentic questions. I have been analyzing this data and have written two popular articles for teachers and recently submitted paper to a journal. I can definitely contribute for AERA 2018 or even for AERA 2017 (if deadlines are not very close).

Hi Gurinder - 

2017 AERA deadlines have passed

delighted you are interested -

See eSchool News Online (www.eschoolnews.com) for March/April 2016:  Classroom observations may hurt teachers more than they help, study says."  By Laura Devaney News Director, @esn_Laura.  Quoting from the article: "However, measures that depend more on the instructional strategies teachers bring to the classroom--"using questioning techniques" and "assessment to drive instruction:-- are largely uncorrelated with student achievement."  Although this is teacher questioning, it may be of value to create a dialogic culture of questioning?

I am working with Gurinder on student questioning, and I also would be interested in the AERA symposium. 

We are interested in comparing how much questioning children do in and out of the classroom, and how questioning in informal discussions differs from questioning in the classroom. Do any of you have thoughts (or hardcore evidence) on this?

This is related to work we are doing to understand the questioning that is part of doing science, and whether or how people do science in their everyday lives. We are using a broad definition of science, which includes natural and social science. And we are also doing some participatory studies with agricultural labourers to find out how they ask and answer questions and teach and learn agriculture.

-Karen Haydock (www.khaydock.com)

sounds great -let's email off research gate

so we are Maree, myself and you folks -

student questioning A very important source of sources and justifications for curriculum development

In John Hattie's "Visible Learning for Teachers," (2012), he noted that questioning had an effect size of +0.68. He further noted that 'how students learn' required teachers to see learning through the eyes of students given that most of what happens in a classroom is not seen or heard by teachers. Thus, we need many methods of assessment and need to listen to student dialogue and questioning.