Content specific questions have significant functions, For example, certain types of questioning techniques
can be more clfective than others in diagnosing reading deficiencies and in assessing what a student knows
about the nature of reading. In the teaching of writing, inquiry is the basis for the production of a well-written
piece. Knowing effective syntactic structures, targeting an audience, organization, and so forth are inconsequen-
Hel if the writer does not know how to conduct the inquiry.

In the teaching of science, the way in which a teacher asks questions and relays information can influence
how a student will perceive the discipline. Since the teacher functions in a dual authority role, that is, she/he is
seen to be ve authority to doa job and an authority of science, it is possible for a teacher to present information
without scientific reasons wholly from her/his position of authority. To do so is to diverge from the ideals of
rationality toward which practicing scientists strive in their profession.

Some questioning sequences in the teaching of science place a high priority on “the right answer,” inhibit-
iny, the student's image of science as knowledge which is heuristic and open to discovery and dispute. What
one finds in some classrooms, then, are “gifted lesson learners,“ students who excel at low-order thinking skills
but who frustrate easily with tasks requiring integrative thinking. Although educators have always endorsed
high-order thinking as a critical process for learning, far too many high school and college graduates leave their
institutions with an inability to use reflective thinking when they are presented with problematic issues.

If society is depending on the development of human intelligence for the advancement of technology and
an improved quality of life, then students and society are depending on teachers for that development. In the
technological labor market, for example, service personnel working with sophisticated electronic equipment must
how possess design and application thinking skills once ascribed only to engineers. Engineers must strengthen
divergent thinking skills to reconstruct, predict, invent, and design in areas of medicine once reserved only for
physicians. Physicians and scientists of the future must be similarly prepared in evaluative skills to judge,
value, defend, or justify a choice or solution in today’s test-tube advancements.

The literature notes various levels of success in training both teachers and students to ask questions which
develop high-order skills. Research findings include: students of teachers trained in questioning techniques ask
higher-order questions, achieve and retain knowledge at a significantly higher level than those taught by teach-
ers who were not trained in questioning techniques; teachers increasing the wait times--pauses in teacher-
student dialogue--significantly produced a more conversational tone in their classrooms, more frequent student
questions, fewer failures of student response, and higher-order student questions and responses. Teachers and
students should note that knowledge is changing at such a rapid rate that perfect judgments, even when all the
information is available, are generally not possible at the higher levels of thinking. As a result, students, teach-
ers, and administrators must value interactive group situations where persons with diverse motivations and
experiences can contribute collectively to more perfect judgments during inquiry.

Teachers must become competent in questioning and inquiry strategies. They should insist that students
cling, tenaciously to individual thinking as a base for higher-order tasks. For the teachers, inquiry strategy is a
way to determine what is known by the student, to develop full-range taxonomic thinking skills in students, and
to probe the student toward always-higher levels of curiosity and reflection. For the student, the observation
and acquisition of questioning and inquiry strategy can shape behavior in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, all
of which are essential to lifelong learning. We may find in both the classroom and the conference room that
who has the answers is not nearly as important as who has the questions!

Pessa Taple, Dean
Occupational Nducation and Technology
San Antonio College

bor lurther information, contact the author at SAC, 1300 San Pedro Avenue, P. O. Box 3800, San Antonio, TX
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DOUGLAS COLLEGE

| ARCHIVES

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Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
November 9, 1984, Vol. VI, No. 31

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS ts a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin,
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The University of Texas at Austin, 1984
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