Asking Questions, Waiting for Answers
by Numair A. Choudhury

The major types of questions fall into five categories

1. Probing Questions
   Questions that require students to go beyond the first response. Subsequent teacher questions are formed on the basis of the student's response. There are four types:
   • Clarifying
     "What, exactly do you mean?"
     "Will you please rephrase your statement?"
     "Could you elaborate on that point?"
     "What did you mean by the term. . .?"
   • Increasing Critical Thinking
     "What are you assuming?"
     "What are your reasons for thinking that is so?"
     "Is that all there is to it?"
     "How many questions are we trying to answer here?"
     "How would an opponent of this point of view respond?"
   • Refocusing
     "If this is true, what are the implications for . . . ?"
     "How does John's answer relate to . . . ?"
     "Can you relate this to . . . ?"
     "Lets analyze that answer."
   • Prompting
     Teacher: "John, what are the implications of this amendment?"
     John: "I don't know."
     Teacher: "Well, what's happened with similar previous legislation?"
     John: "It opened up a slippery slope."
     Teacher: "And this is basically the same?"
     John: "Yes."
     Teacher: "Then what can we predict about this new legislation?"
     John: "It will be used to lobby for more laws."
2. Redirecting to Another Student
   Teacher: "What is the theme of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea?"
   Sam: "It's about an old man's courage in catching a fish."
   Teacher: "Mary, do you agree?" or: "Mary, do you think it's that simple?"
   or: "Mary, can you elaborate on Sam's answer?"
3. Factual Questions
   Questions that require the student to recall specific information previously learned and/or read. Often these use who, what, when, where, etc. Often encountered in two types:
   • Simple Bits of Information
     "Who was the leader of the Free French forces during W.W.II?"
     "Who is the main character in George Orwell's novel, 1984?’"
     "During which century did Bakhtin live?"
     "What is the Greek word logos?"
   • Facts Organized into a Logical Order (Sequence of Events)
     "What are the steps a bill goes through before it becomes a law?"
     "How were the American and French forces able to bottle up Cornwall and the British at Yorktown ?"
     "How are the trimesters distinguished biologically?"
     "What were the sequence of events leading to the Patriot Act being passed?"
4. Divergent Questions
   Questions with no right or wrong answers, but which encourage exploration of possibilities. Requires both concrete and abstract thinking to arrive at an appropriate response.
   "What might happen if Congress passes a law preventing the manufacture and sale of cigarettes in the United States?"
   "How would the story have been different if John had been a tall, strong boy instead of disabled?"
   "If you were stuck on a desert island and the only tool you had was a dictionary, what use might you make of it?"
   "In what ways would history have been changed had the Spanish Armada defeated the English in 1588?"
5. Higher Order Questions
   Questions that require students to figure out answers rather than remember them. Requires generalizations related to facts in meaningful patterns.
   • Evaluation
     Requires judgment, value or choice based upon comparing of ideas or objects to established standards.
     "Which of the two books do you believe contributed most to an understanding of the Victorian era? Why?"
     "Assuming equal resources, who would you rate as the most skillful general, Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant? Why?
   • Inference
     Requires inductive or deductive reasoning
   • Inductive: Discovery of a general principle from a collection of specific facts.
   • Deductive: Logical operation in which the worth of a generalization is tested with specific issues.
     "We have examined the qualities these world leaders have in common. What might we conclude, in general, about qualities necessary for leadership? Why?" (Inductive)
     "If creationism is not taught in schools any more, would those opposed to embryonic stem cell research object? Why?" (Deductive)
   • Comparison
     Requires student to determine if ideas/objects are similar, dissimilar, unrelated, or contradictory.
     "Is a right the same thing as a privilege?"
     "What similarities and differences exist between Lincoln 's Gettysburg Address and Pericles' Funeral Oration?"
     "What is the connection between Social Darwinism and the Supreme Court actions of the late nineteenth century?"
   • Application
     Requires student to use a concept or principle in a context different from that in which she/he learned it.
     Concept = Classification of events/objects that have common characteristics.
     Principle = A relationship between two or more concepts.
     "How was Gresham 's Law demonstrated in the Weimar Republic of Germany?"
     "Can you think of an example to fit this definition?"
   • Problem-Solving
     Requires a student to use previously learned knowledge to solve a problem. Students must see relationships between knowledge and the problem, diagnose materials, situations, and environments, separate problems into components parts, and relate parts to one another and the whole. This question may generate answers the teacher hasn't anticipated.
     "Suppose you grow up with the idea that dogs were bad. Out of the many dogs you came into contact with, none bit you when you were quite young. How would you react towards dogs now? Would the type, size, etc., of the dog make any difference as to how you react? Explain the notion of prejudices using this example."
   • Affective Questions
     Questions that elicit expressions of attitude, values, or feelings of the student.
     "How do you feel about that?"
     "Is that important to you?"
     "Would you like to . . . ?"
   • Structuring Questions
     Questions related to the setting in which learning is occurring.
     "Are there any questions? "
     "Any further comments?"
     "Is the assignment clear?"
     "Would you repeat that?"
     "Are we ready to continue?"

Thinking Time

The concept of "wait-time" as an instructional variable was invented by Mary Budd Rowe (1972). The "wait-time" periods she found—periods of silence that followed teacher questions and students' completed responses—rarely lasted more than 1.5 seconds in typical classrooms. She discovered, however, that when these periods of silence lasted at least 3 seconds, many positive things happened to students' and teachers' behaviors and attitudes. To attain these benefits, teachers were urged to "wait" in silence for 3 or more seconds after their questions, and after students completed their responses (Casteel and Stahl, 1973; Rowe 1972; Stahl 1990; Tobin 1987).

For example, when students are given 3 or more seconds of undisturbed "wait-time," there are certain positive outcomes:

• The length and correctness of their responses increase.
• The number of their "I don't know" and no answer responses decreases.
• The number of volunteered, appropriate answers by larger numbers of students greatly increases.
• The scores of students on academic achievement tests tend to increase. When teachers wait patiently in silence for 3 or more seconds at appropriate places, positive changes in their own teacher behaviors also occur:
  • Their questioning strategies tend to be more varied and flexible.
  • They decrease the quantity and increase the quality and variety of their questions.
  • They ask additional questions that require more complex information processing and higher-level thinking on the part of students.

Recently, Stahl (1985) constructed the concept of "think-time," defined as a distinct period of uninterrupted silence by the teacher and all students so that they both can complete appropriate information processing tasks, feelings, oral responses, and actions. The label "think-time" is preferred over "wait-time" because of three reasons (Stahl 1990):

• It names the primary academic purpose and activity of this period of silence to allow students and the teacher to complete on-task thinking.
• There are numerous places where periods of silence are as important as those "wait-time periods" reported in the research literature.
• There is at least one exception, labeled "impact pause-time," that allows for periods of less than 3 seconds of uninterrupted silence. The convention is to use 3 seconds as the minimum time period because this time length represents a significant break-through (or threshold) point: after at least 3 seconds, a significant number of very positive things happen to students and teachers. The concern here is not that 2.9 seconds is bad, while 3 seconds is good, and 5.3 seconds of silence is even better. The concern is to provide the period of time that will most effectively assist nearly every student to complete the cognitive tasks needed in the particular situation. The teacher's job is to manage and guide what occurs prior to and immediately following each period of silence so that the processing that needs to occur is completed.

Provided by:
Numair A. Choudhury, who is studying for a Ph. D, in Aesthetic Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas. He was born in Bangladesh. Prior to UTD he studied and loved creative writing at Oberlin College, Ohio, and then at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.