Questioning Strategies

Questioning skills refer to one's ability to formulate and respond to questions about situations, objects, concepts, and ideas. There are two levels of questions: low-level questions and high-level questions. Questioning strategies are useful to instructors for effectively planning class participation activities, for designing homework assignments, and for writing exams. The strategies help instructors to match their goals or objectives for an assignment with the actual components of the assignment. Other functions of questioning strategies are as follows.

to motivate and to interest
to reveal prior misconceptions
to evaluate
to guide thinking
to discipline, manage, or control
to encourage involvement of passive learners
to diagnose strengths and weaknesses
to understand how students form concepts
to help students form the habit of reflection
to gain insight about students' interests
to increase students' incentive to inquire
to help students learn to construct meaning
to help students set realistic expectations
to summarize information
to relate concepts
to provide student feedback
to give listening clues

Lower Level Questions

Memory Questions
Who? What? Where?	When? Why? How?

Higher Level Questions

Definitions of Terms

What is the author's meaning of the term?
What is your meaning of the term?
Does the term change meaning in the article?

Generalizations

What events led to this situation?
In what three ways does this situation resemble . . . ?
How do these events cause change?

Values

What is said about this topic? Do you agree?
What kind of person supports this topic?
Did anyone say or do something that you wouldn't do?

Translations

Retell this situation in your own words.
What kind of diagram could you use to illustrate this concept?
How could we restate these ideas for a person from another culture?

Comparisons

How is this idea like . . . ?
How does this idea today compare with ideas of 20 years ago?
How does this idea in the U.W. compare with ideas in another country?
Which three ideas are most alike?

Implications

What will these ideas lead to . . . ?
What justification does the author give for these ideas?
If these ideas or events continue to happen, what will result?

Applications

How can these ideas be applied to life here in school?
How can we show from this story that we need . . . ?
What would be necessary if we wanted to . . . ?

Analyses

Discuss the statement, "ASL is not a language."
Some people think that English skills deteriorate when Sign is used, on what do they base this assumption? What do you think?

Evaluation

What do you think of the person or situation; why do you feel this way?
Find the opinions; find the facts. Are the supporting reasons logical? emotional? ethical?

source: http://www.muskingum.edu/~cal/database/general/questioning.html
Developed by Karen Kimmel for the
Gallaudet University English Department
from Dr. Gerald Begy,
SUNY College at Brockport