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Questions produce cognitive effects in our learners and generate
learning benefits. While it is beyond the scope of this webpage to delve
into these benefits in great depth, the following list offers a flavor
of the myriad ways that questioning strategies support deep and
meaningful learning. Some of these benefits are inherent to questions,
while others are possible if questions are well designed and well
facilitated.
The following list of benefits is drawn from (a) the basic research on
human learning, (b) from the research literature on active learning, and
(c) from the practical utilization of active-learning classroom
techniques, often in conjunction with audience response systems.
I've divided these 24 learning benefits into two sections. The first
section will cover the learning benefits that result almost inherently
from the cognitive effects of questioning. The second section will
continue the list of learning benefits, but will cover the learning
benefits that are possible—those that are leveragable if questions are
appropriately utilized.
The Inherent Learning Benefits of Questions
1.
Prequestions Guide Learner Attention
Prequestions improve overall learning when they are presented to
learners soon before learning events Prequestions help learners focus on
the most important learning material they subsequently encounter.
2.
Postquestions Guide Later Learner Processing
How learners approach new material is affected by previous questions .
For example, Sagerman and Mayer (1987) found that learners did better on
verbatim questions when they had previously gotten verbatim questions
and conceptual questions when they had previously gotten conceptual
questions. Questions then, not only have an effect on learning events
that occur immediately after the questions, but also on subsequent
learning events. Because questions create habits of mind, we need to be
very careful that our questions are creating the right habits. Questions
can have detrimental effects when we continually test learners on
meaningless fragments of facts, figures, and folderol.
3.
Questions Provide Repetition
Repetition is arguably the most important learning factor there is. It
enables learners to remember things they’d forgotten, learn things they
didn’t quite get the first time around, and strengthen and enrich what
they already know. Repetition doesn’t imply verbatim repetition.
Verbatim repetitions can sometimes be valuable but they’re often boring.
The true power of repetition is realized when we use paraphrasing,
examples, case studies, role-plays, simulations, and questioning.
Questions inherently provide repetitions. Consider the instructional
sequence, (a) content, (b) question, (c) discussion, (d) feedback. This
sequence provides four repetitions of the learning point. Each of these
interactions prompts the learners to engage the learning point in some
manner.
4.
Questions Provide Retrieval Practice
The fundamental purpose of learning is to facilitate later retrieval of
the learned information. While the term “retrieval” may conjure up
images of simple recall, retrieval refers more broadly to drawing
information from long-term memory into working memory. Therefore,
retrieval occurs when we answer a question, when we think about how to
solve a problem, when we engage in creativity, when we kick a soccer
ball, when we are involved in a conversation, and when we play music. If
our goal is to facilitate later retrieval, one of the best ways to
support that retrieval is to prompt learners to retrieve information
during learning. Practice makes perfect, and retrieval during learning
not only provides practice but it makes the information that was
retrieved more accessible in memory as well .
5.
Questions Provide Learners with Feedback
Questions enable learners to get feedback on their retrieval attempts.
Questions not only enable learners to evaluate their retrieval
performance, but they can be used to help learners overcome their
misconceptions and reinforce their tentative understandings. Researchers
who have reviewed research articles on feedback have concluded that
feedback was very effective in producing learning benefits . In fact,
many investigators have been so sure of feedback’s effectiveness that
they have simply assumed it improves learning and have gone on to
discuss other variables that affect its impact . Studies that have
compared giving feedback to not giving feedback generally have found
fairly sizable improvements with feedback .
6. Questions Provide Instructors with Feedback
Questions not only provide learners with feedback, but they provide
instructors with feedback as well. In a typical lecture, instructions
get some feedback by watching the body language of learners and by
listening to audience questions. This feedback tends to be quite
impoverished. Learners are hesitant to admit their confusion in large
rooms of peers. Instructors may tune out the feedback because it’s
uncomfortable to acknowledge that their performance may be lacking. Body
language, may tell an instructor that learners are confused, but it
can’t clarify the exact nature of the confusion. Well-designed questions
can help pinpoint the comprehension issues and get all the learners
involved in providing data about their comprehension. Moreover,
instructors can modify their facilitation based on the feedback they
receive. For example, Draper and Brown (2004) talk about the benefits of
contingent teaching—where instructors change what they teach within a
particular learning session based on learner responses to questions.
The Leveragable Learning Benefits of Questions
The list above highlighted the inherent learning benefits of
questions—the advantages that questions almost automatically produce.
The following list highlights the possible benefits—the gains that can
be leveraged depending on the design of your questions and the quality
of the work and discussions that supplement those questions . I have
chosen to continue the numbering, instead of starting anew, because I
want to emphasize that questions offer myriad ways to produce their
“benefits.”
7.
Prequestions Activate Prior Knowledge
One factor that propels learning is to help learners connect their new
knowledge to what they’ve already learned. Great instructors—whether
they are teachers, religious leaders, managers, or political leaders—are
adept at using metaphorical language to imbue a discussion with
immediate meaning. The metaphor bridges the gap between what is well
known and what is new. In the same way, we can help our learners learn
by using questions that ask them to bring into working memory
information they’ve already learned.
8.
Questions Can Grab Attention
Questions by their very nature force learners to pay attention. While
the drone of a lecture is more likely to keep learners in a state of
daydreaming, questions prompt learners to reorient their minds to the
content of the question. This has obvious learning benefits. Without
attention, there is no learning.
9.
Questions Can Provide Variety
Providing learners with a variety of learning methods can create
learning, attention, and motivational advantages. Research has shown
that variety helps people learn better, keeps them attentive longer, and
motivates them to feel more interest in the topic. Even repeating
concepts with paraphrased wording has advantages. The basic act of
providing a question provides variety in comparison to lecture alone.
Going beyond this basic mechanism, questions can provide variety by
utilizing different question types. Questions can focus on the same
concept but utilize different background situations. Instructors can
facilitate questions differently, asking learners to answer individually
sometimes, or having them discuss with partners, groups, or the whole
class.
10. Questions Can Make the Learning Personal
Designing your lectures and discussions to help your learners see how
the material relates to them personally has obvious value. It helps
motivate the learners to pay attention and makes it more likely that
learners will relate the new learning to their long-held knowledge
structures. Even if your lectures and discussions are devoid of personal
connection, questions can highlight the personal aspects of the
material. By connecting the learning material to learners’ personal
concerns, we can also help our learners learn outside our classrooms.
Learners don’t learn only in the classroom. If we can generate thinking
in the classroom that makes it likely that learners will spontaneously
ponder relevant concepts while away from the classroom, we’ve doubled
the returns on our classroom learning investment. In fact, we’ve done
much more than that. When learning is personal, it’s much more likely to
be remembered and utilized long into the future.
11. Questions Can Provide Spaced Repetitions
Repetitions of questions that are spaced apart in time are more
effective than those that are massed together . Glover (1989b) found
that repeating a test spaced by one day produced significantly higher
retention than providing a test immediately after the material was
learned. Even in a single classroom session, waiting to space a question
after covering other unrelated material can provide substantial
benefits. So for example, you might present Content A, then Content B,
and then provide a question regarding Content A. Similarly, you might
present Content A B C and D and then ask questions on A B C and D.
Homework and studying also provide spaced repetitions. For example, you
might use a couple questions at the end of class—without providing the
answers—to spur learning outside the classroom. You could then include
those questions in the following session and provide feedback.
12. Questions Can Highlight Boundary Conditions
Questions can be used to introduce learners to boundary conditions or
test their knowledge of contingencies. For example, fifth graders may be
taught that tolerance is good, but they also need to learn that
tolerance of evil is not good. Managers can be taught to encourage their
direct reports to help in making decisions, except in cases that have
safety, ethical, or legal repercussions. Highlighting boundary
conditions often brings a dose of reality to instruction, thus engaging
learners by moving beyond stale platitudes. Real life is complicated. If
we don’t acknowledge this to our learners, we not only do them a
disservice, we lose their respect and attention.
13. Questions Can Highlight Common Misunderstandings
Learners often come to learning experiences with naïve understandings
that make it difficult for them to learn new information. Their
preconceptions may bias them against the new paradigms they have to
learn. As many master instructors have concluded, one of the primary
goals of instruction is to help learners unlearn their flawed beliefs
and replace them with more accurate knowledge structures. Question
answering reveals the truth of learners’ knowledge to learners and to
the instructor. Such revelations enable learners to awaken to new
constructs and test newly learned constructs. At the same time, these
“teachable moments” provide instructors with special advantages in
guiding and supporting further learning.
14. Questions Can Demonstrate Forgetting
Learners forget. It’s an immutable law of nature. As instructors, one of
our primary goals is to ensure that our learners learn AND remember.
Unfortunately, the typical learning environment is set up to make this
difficult. First, learners are overly optimistic about their ability to
remember, so during learning events they sometimes avoid using the kind
of cognitive processing that supports long-term retention. For example,
they tend to use simple rehearsal strategies as opposed to more
elaborative processing. Second, learners are often too busy or
distracted to devote enough time to learning. Third, learners who are
graded often focus on getting good grades as opposed to supporting their
long-term ability to remember. For example, they tend to cram instead of
spacing their learning and practice over time. As recent research has
showed, learners who are prompted to retrieve information from memory
after a significant delay—typically over a week or more—are much more
likely afterwards to utilize cognitive processing that propels long-term
remembering. If we want our learners to remember concepts over time, we
can help them by providing them with questions well after we’ve moved on
to different topic areas.
15. Questions Can Support Transfer to Related Situations/Topics
It is rare for knowledge learned in one topic area to be retrieved from
memory when another topic is being considered. You may have heard of
this as the problem of transfer . Even when learners are given a problem
to solve that closely resembles another problem they already solved,
they very rarely use the solution to the solved problem to solve the
second problem. In current parlance, learners “just don’t get it” unless
the connections are actually practiced or made incredibly obvious.
Questions provide an obvious opportunity to help support transfer. We
can use questions to provide authentic scenarios to directly practice
transfer. We can also provide multiple questions on the same learning
point—each utilizing a different background context.
16. Questions Can Prepare Learners for Future Decision-Making
Rarely is rote recall the primary goal of instruction. Often, we want
learners to be able to retrieve information from memory to make
decisions. For example, history teachers might want learners to remember
the lessons of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War so that they can
make better decisions about which political party to support. A biology
teacher might want learners to remember how ecosystems work so that the
learners will make more-informed decisions about recycling, eating, and
purchasing a car. A leadership trainer might want learners to make
better decisions about how to handle unstable employees. To support
future decision-making, questions can be used that simulate future
decision-making situations. In other words, if we give them authentic
decisions to make, we’ll better prepare them to make future real-world
decisions.
17. Questions Can Demonstrate Relevance to the Real World
Sometimes our learners aren’t preparing for specific future
decision-making responsibilities, so the section immediately above may
not seem to apply directly. Still, to keep learners engaged and to
provide them with deep learning experiences, it may be beneficial to
provide them either with decision-making questions beyond what their
futures may hold and/or other questions that aren’t decision-making
related but do highlight the importance of the topic.
18. Questions Can Help Learners Identify Their Assumptions
Questions are excellent vehicles to prompt students to identify their
assumptions. Socrates used a series of questions to help pinpoint his
learners’ misunderstandings. You can use a series of questions or one
question to do the same.
19. Questions Can Encourage Attention to Difficult Content
When faced with extremely difficult content in a classroom situation,
some learners become overwhelmed and just tune out. This can happen
intentionally or automatically. Some learners will move into a state of
performance anxiety that literally overloads the limited capacity of
their working memories with off-task ruminations. Others will
consciously tune out, expecting to be able to learn the material on
their own outside the classroom. In either case, valuable learning time
is lost. Questions can be used in these instances to partition the
learning content into manageable chunks and to slow the flow of the
lecture to give learners an opportunity to refocus their attention on
processing the learning material.
20. Questions Can Demonstrate Learning over Time
Questions delivered in a pretest-posttest format, before and after the
accompanying content, can demonstrate for learners how much they’ve
learned. While this may not seem particularly advantageous—“Can’t they
see how far they’ve come?”—learners often can’t remember their previous
states of mind, so demonstrating it to them may be the only way to
convince them of their progress. This has advantages for the learners,
because it demonstrates that their learning efforts have value, making
it more likely that they’ll approach future learning tasks with a bent
toward perseverance. It has advantages for instructors as well, because
it will increase learner satisfaction, instructor ratings, and will
induce further learner engagement.
21. Questions Can Provide Practice in Learning with Others
Almost all learners need to be able to work with others—and learn with
others. Certainly, in today’s knowledge economy, the ability to work
with others is critical to success. There are at least three reasons to
give them practice in working with others. First, learning with others
provides people with multiple perspectives and thus a richer learning
experience. Second, learning with others usually improves individual
learning outcomes. It improves attention to the task. It creates more
elaborate memory pathways. It prompts retrieval practice to reinforce
the concepts. Finally, learning with others is preparation for their
real-world futures. It helps them practice articulating their thoughts.
It gives learners practice interacting and working with others.
22. Questions Can Be Utilized to Gather Experimental Data
This benefit doesn’t relate to all classrooms, but it can be quite
powerful when it is relevant. The idea is that we can actually collect
data from our learners to elucidate our topic. For example, an
instructor could prompt students to respond to a typical color-blindness
test by selecting an answer with their handsets. To begin a discussion
of perfect pitch, an instructor could ask students to listen to a
musical note and ask them to select which note it is. Gathering
experimental data is particularly appropriate when the class topics
revolve around issues related to human beings, for example in courses in
psychology, perception, decision making, ethics, and political science,
among many other similar courses. A professor teaching a course on
experimental psychology might replicate famous experiments that have
been done.
23. Questions Can Prompt Out-of-the-Classroom Learning Activities
The more time learners spend learning, the more they learn. The
correlation isn’t perfect—not all learning is created equal—but it’s
still a strong positive correlation. Whether it’s a corporate classroom
or high-school chemistry lab, only so much learning can take place in
the classroom. If learners can be encouraged to engage in meaningful
mathemagenic (learning-creating) processing outside the classroom, their
learning outcomes will be improved. Questions can prompt
out-of-the-classroom learning in a number of ways. The most brutish way
is through grading. If learners are graded on their handset responses,
they’re more likely to prepare for classes. Note that this has to be
done very carefully so as not to stifle learning in the classroom. We’ll
talk about this later. We’ve already talked about how personally
relevant questions can spontaneously promote out-of-the-classroom
thinking related to the course content. If the questions relate to the
learner’s real-world futures, cues in those future situations may remind
the learners about the content they previously learned.
24. Questions Can Promote Thinking Skills
Helping learners digest facts, learn terminology, and understand complex
topics is commendable, but not sufficient. Our learners won’t be fully
prepared for their futures unless they develop thinking skills—methods
to evaluate situations, solve problems, generate options, make
decisions. Questions, in conjunction with classroom facilitation and
well-designed classroom exercises, can promote such thinking skills,
encouraging learners to (a) generate multiple solutions, (b) categorize
and classify, (c) discuss, summarize, and model, (d) strategize,
justify, and plan, (e) reflect and evaluate, and (f) think about
thinking and learning . Questions can also help learners (g) notice the
most critical factors in a chaotic swarm of stimuli, (h) utilize
hypothesis generation tactics, (i) simplify complexity to within
workable boundaries, (j) recognize when a proposed solution has been
fully vetted, and (k), persevere in learning in the face of obstacles,
etc.
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