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The remedial status of studentquestioningJ. T. DillonPublished online: 29 Sep 2006.

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J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 1988, VOL. 20, NO. 3, 197-210

The remedial status of student questioning

J. T. DILLON

Questioning is frequently used in classrooms, but rarely as a knowledge-seekingmethod. Those who ask questions-teachers, texts, tests-are not seeking knowl-edge; those who would seek knowledge-students-do not ask questions. Enough isknown about teachers' questions to make plain that they come in great numbers andcertain kinds, none of which can on the face of it represent the search for theknowledge in question (see Dillon 1978; 1979; 1982). Little enough is known aboutstudent questions. Here we shall address two empirical issues: What are the observedcharacteristics of student question-asking? Under what conditions do students proveto exhibit questioning behaviour? In answer, we shall have recourse to empiricalresearch of first descriptive, and then explanatory character.

Characteristics of student questioning

How many questions do students ask? To what extent do their questions seekinformation? And what kind of information do they seek? As far as we know fromobservational studies in classrooms, students ask remarkably few questions, andeven fewer in search of knowledge.

An observational study

Let us go into six different high schools and observe 27 different classrooms whereteachers and students are engaged in discussion, that is not in recitation or lecture orseatwork. What questions do we hear? Tables 1 and 2 summarize the results.

The study reported here is based on classroom recordings and transcriptionsgathered for another study (Dillon 1981 a). From the full hour's observation of eachclassroom, a ten-minute episode was randomly selected for analysis of studentquestions.

First, we hear a lot of questions-four or five per minute in some classes, andoverall an average of two questions per minute. Second, we see that only one personis asking this number of questions - the teacher. All the other people in the room arenot asking questions.

Author: J. T. Dillon, School of Education, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.J. T. Dillon is editor of Questioning Exchange, a new journal devoted to questioning. His current booksinclude Questioning and Teaching (Croom Helm) and Questioning and Discussion (Ablex). A version of thispaper was presented at the conference on Questioning as a Knowledge-seeking Method, sponsored by theNational Science Foundation and the Department of Philosophy at Florida State University,Tallahassee, 4-6 April 1985.

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198 J. T. DILLON

Table 1. Questions in 27 high school discussion classes*

Student questions

FrequencyMean per class% of turns at talkRate per minuteRate per hour

Teacher questions

37814-062-5

1484

Total

953-5610-3

18

Informational

11040-700424

* Analysis of ten-minute episode for each class.

Type

Table 2. Student questions in 27 high school discussion classes

Frequency Example

Conversational

Self-answered

Expressive/argumentative

Informational

Total

25 1. What? I didn't hear.2. You know what I mean?

15 1. One day, what did they do?-put restrictions oneverybody.

2. What is it now? —you gotta be 5'7".

44 1. How can one be the same as the other one, when they'redifferent?

2. I don't think we should help them, there's problems inour own country, why should we help another country?

3. If they were talking about their marriage, and all of asudden I found out they weren't married. Thenwouldn't they be lying to me all those years?

11 1. Y'all got into the courtroom yesterday?2. Was that his wife?3. And was that lady there, who hit his car?4. Were there more pregnancies in, like the 1940s and '50s

than there are now?5. When did the draft come about?6. Who'd pay for it—Congress itself?7. Is there any way they can check the water for that

[pollutant], you know, before you.. . ?8. Couldn't they possibly seal [pollutant containers], or is

it too messy?9. Does it come out in a powder, or . . . ?

10. I was just wondering, like-I dunno, this might bekinda dumb and stuff—but OK, like you said, 'What isthe Christian attitude to people who smoke?' So, doesthat mean if you smoke, you're not a Christian? (Well,I . . . that's a good question.)

11. Yeah, I want to ask you a question. What country dothey have this, like when girls are young and boys arereal young, you know, the parents, they already knowthat they're going to marry?

95

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REMEDIAL STATUS OF STUDENT QUESTIONING 199

How many questions are asked (see table 1)? Questions take up two-thirds of theteacher's turns at talk. Only 6% of student turns are interrogative, with less than 1%in all consisting of information-seeking questions. All the students in the classtogether ask about two information questions an hour, while the teacher is askingabout two questions per minute.

What kinds of questions do students ask (see table 2)? Of the few interrogativeswe hear from these students, about a quarter are of a conversational-repair type.Many others are answered without pause by the person who asked the question, as ifthe questions were rhetorical. Another half seem to be of some rhetorical type, asthey do not sound expressive of doubt, uncertainty, or perplexity, but rather soundargumentative or affective, as if the questions were put to make a point. And, indeed,we hear responses such as 'Yeah, bu t . . . " and 'Good point'. Of all the interrogatives,only one-tenth seek information.

As we visit these 27 classrooms one after another, we do not hear aninformation-seeking question in every room, nor in every other room. We have tovisit three classrooms in a row to hear a single informational question. And whattrivial questions we hear! What sad pieces of information they seek! And yet whatgrand themes they touch upon - racist trials (examples 1, 2 and 3 in table 2), abortion(4), armed revolution (5,6), pollution (7, 8 and 9), religion (10) and marriage (11).For that is what was being discussed in those classes, and these were the questionsasked about that.

Engaged in discussing these and like themes, we see a total of 721 students. Andwe hear information-seeking questions from eight of these students - 1 % of the total.No questions from the other 99%. Not a single information question from 713adolescents nearing graduation from high school.

Having seen and heard as much-as little-we leave these 27 classroomswondering whether we might have come on a bad day. Perhaps, if we had stayedlonger during the hour, or come on another day, or visited other schools or observeddifferent grades and subjects, we would have seen what we presume to be thereasonable and preferable thing to see in our schoolrooms-inquiring students,young people asking questions as they engage in the tasks of seeking knowledge andlearning.

Other observations

What student questions have other observers found at other times and places? In 38elementary classrooms, Susskind (1969; 1979) observed one question per month perpupil; in 6 secondary classrooms, Fahey (1942 b) observed one question per monthper pupil. Pupil questions accounted for 2% of all tallies made by Dodl (1966) in 14elementary classes; student questions accounted for 2% of all tallies made by Johns(1968) in 6 secondary classes. Houston (1938) visited 11 junior high classrooms for5-6 lessons each, and he heard a total of 7 questions from the students; Corey (1940)visited 6 senior high classrooms for one week, and he heard a total of 114 questionsfrom the 169 students - fewer than one question per student. Over the class hour,Susskind (1969) observed an average of 2 questions from all the elementary pupilscombined in the class, and 84 questions from the teacher; over the class hour, Dillon(see table 1) observed an average of 2 questions from all the secondary students in theclass, and 84 questions from the teacher.

No one has ever gone into a sample of classrooms and found a lot of studentquestions. On the contrary, investigators can scarcely find any student questions.

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200 J. T. DILLON

They repeatedly find what Susskind (1969: 146) characterized as 'the dearth ofstudent questions and the deluge of teacher questions'. Moreover, this situation hasoften been regretfully remarked upon over the course of educational research-in1912, by Stevens, in one of the very first studies on classroom questioning; in 1942,by,Fahey (1942 a; 1942 b) in a review of the literature on children's questions; in1970, by Gall, in a review of research on classroom questions; and by any number ofcontemporary observers (e.g. van der Meij 1986). It has become both a descriptiveand a normative observation: students do not ask questions.

At the same time, it is known that children do ask questions, and that they askmore questions as they get older. And it is further known that children ask fewerquestions in school than out of it, and fewer and fewer questions as they progressthrough school.

Classroom studies led Fahey (1942 a: 342) to conclude that 'the frequency ofquestions asked in the classroom tends to decrease as children grow older'. Bycontrast, van Hekken and Roelofsen (1982: 452) observed 76 children at play andfound that 'the number of information questions increased significantly with age'.The number of questions per child in a 15-minute session, according to van Hekkenand Roelofsen, is as follows:

age 5 4-7 questions7 7-59 8-6

11 9-7

Yamamoto (1962: 86) asked 780 children to ask questions not answerable by thepicture he showed them. Grouping the children by school grade, he too found that'the number of questions asked increases with grade'. In a five-minute session, themean number of questions for children from grades 1 through 12 was: 6-3, 8-1, 9-2,5-4, 7-6, 8-8, 6-7, 9-3, 10-3, 12-8, 12-0 and 12-5. Moreover, the older children askedmore questions than the 70 adults in the sample did (adult mean of 10-5 questions).

Tizard et al. (1983) radio-recorded the talk of four-year old girls at home and inschool. The children asked an hourly rate of 24 questions at home, and 1-4 in school;questions accounted for 2% of their school talk and 6% of their home talk. Moreover,they asked fewer 'curiosity questions' in school than in home. These children were amere four years of age; already they had acquired the characteristic questioningbehaviour that would be observable throughout the course of their schooling. AsTizard et al. (1983: 279) put it: 'The children seem to learn very quickly that theirrole at school is to answer, not to ask questions'.

In sum, children qua students do not ask questions. They may be raisingquestions in their own mind during the class hour. They may be questioning as theyread and study their texts. They may be asking questions of their friends and familyand of adults in other roles or contexts. But they do not ask questions aloud in theclassroom. Why not?

Conditions of student questioning

What factors might account for the observed scarcity of student questions in theclassroom? A multiplicity of factors can be identified for exploration, but they comemore readily and certainly to light in answer to a related and more fruitful question:Under what conditions might students ask questions?

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REMEDIAL STATUS OF STUDENT QUESTIONING 201

Rather than listing the multiple possibilities, we will locate them within thecategorial commonplaces of educational discourse-teacher, student, subject matterand milieu. The question then becomes, for example: What can teachers do toencourage student questions? Do students know how to ask questions? Whichcharacteristics of subject matter or curriculum materials stimulate student question-ing? In which circumstances do social norms support student questioning? These aremerely examples of the questions that can be asked within each category.

For each of the four categories, a few factors will be selected as candidates forour understanding and practice of student questioning. Each factor will be treated byshowing its operation in some experimental research study (where possible). Theteacher category will figure only later in the review so as to avoid giving it first placein our considerations; pedagogical factors may be among neither the most powerfulnor the most responsible at work.

Student training

Both the frequency and the type of questions put by students can be enhanced byconditions of training or instruction.

Programmatic. In order to increase the frequency and cognitive level of pupils'questions in a fifth-grade class, Sadker and Cooper (1974) used an approach thatmight be termed programmatic, for it included instruction, modelling, practice,feedback and reinforcement. Four selected pupils first read about higher-orderquestions (evaluation, comparison, problem-solving, cause-effect and divergence).Then they watched a videotape of pupils asking questions of this type. Theypractised asking these types during ten-minute micro-teaching sessions, thenwatched themselves on videotape while receiving feedback and encouragement.Their subsequent questioning behaviour in regular class lessons was maintained by atoken economy-one point was given for each higher-type question asked, with thepoints exchangeable for toys.

As a group, these four pupils asked a mean of 0-62 higher questions per five-minute interval, in contrast to 0-07 questions during baseline and extinction periods.According to Sadker and Cooper (1974: 506), 'Unless special training is implemen-ted, student question asking is alien to elementary school classrooms'.

Reinforcement. Glover and Zimmer (1982) used teacher praise to change thetypes of question asked by a fifth-grade class during its regular daily session ofdiscussion and asking questions about what they had read. First, the teacher taughtthem about different cognitive types of question, then she would praise each questionasked of a particular type during a particular session.

At baseline, higher-order questions of all types accounted for no more than 8%of pupil questions; during the sessions when praise was used for a particular type, theproportion of application questions was 22%, synthesis questions 26%, and analysisquestions 46%. As Glover and Zimmer (1982: 275) put it: 'The kinds of informationwhich students seek, defined by the level of the questions they ask, can be modifiedwith fairly simple and straightforward procedures'.

Modelling. Lempers and Miletic (1983) showed pre-school and primarychildren videotaped models of adults responding to ambiguous and incomprehen-sible messages (picture drawings) by asking questions of either a specific-information or general-information type. In subsequent trials, children exposed to

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202 J- T. DILLON

the specific-question model asked significantly more questions, and more questionsof a specific-information type, than children exposed to the general-question model,while those exposed to both kinds of modelling asked more questions than thecontrol group. For example, in the ambiguous stimulus, the mean number ofquestions per child in the specific-question group was 7-7, compared to 4"5 for thegeneral-question group, and 2-4 for the control group.

In a related study, Zimmerman and Pike (1972) found that a combination ofmodelling plus reinforcement (praise) was more effective than reinforcement alone.

Prompting. As used by Knapczyk and Livingston (1974), prompting seems to bea combination of cueing and reinforcement. They selected two junior-high specialeducation students who asked no questions in class. During the daily reading lesson,the teacher told these two several times that she would like them to raise their handsand ask a question if they did not know a word or did not understand a direction. Shethen acknowledged and answered every question.

The two students asked no questions during the baseline phase (and extinction),while during the prompting phases one student asked a mean of 5-3 questions and theother 10-3 questions for the 50-minute reading period. We note that these tworemedial students were asking more questions in a single class period than wereasked altogether by hundreds of students in dozens of classes observed for weeks andmonths at a stretch (in the descriptive studies noted previously).

Programmed instruction. A branching-type auto-instructional programme wasfound by Blank and Covington (1965) to increase the number of questions asked bysixth-grade science pupils and, in addition, to transfer and generalize their question-asking under different conditions, as well as resulting in higher scores on anachievement test. The programme presented the pupil with a series of problemswhich lacked sufficient information to be solved. Before deciding on an answer orturning the page, the pupil wrote down the questions that needed answering first.

The mean number of questions they wrote during the programmed instructionrose from 0-5 and 06 for the first two problems to 1-5 for the third, 2-5 for the fourth,and 3-3 for the fifth-thereafter to 7-0 on a subsequent written criterion test. On anoral criterion test, the number of questions per child increased from 3-6 before theprogramme to 13-5 after. Pupils in the control group asked three questions beforeand three after. On a science achievement test, the trained children solved two-thirdsof the problems correctly, compared to half for the control group.

Thus, using this auto-instructional programme, children increased the numberof questions they wrote as they progressed through the programme (from 0-5 to 3-3),and further increased their questions on a subsequent non-programme set ofproblems (7-0). They transferred and generalized their questioning to oral non-programme conditions, while also increasing the number of oral questions theyasked (from 3 before to 13 after). Compared to non-trained children, they askedmore written questions (7 vs. 1), more oral questions (13 vs. 3), and solved morescience problems on a test (66% vs. 54% correct). We note that these pupils wereasking more questions per problem than whole classes have been observed to ask perday and per month.

Didactic instruction. In addition to teaching students to ask questions, some ofthese approaches included a bit of teaching about questions. Didactic instructionalone would appear to alert students to the role of questions and to encourage theirasking both more questions and more questions of the types that are taught them.The instruction can be specific or generic.

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REMEDIAL STATUS OF STUDENT QUESTIONING 203

As far as specific instruction is concerned, a good deal of recent research inreading instruction involves teaching students to pose questions of this or that typeabout what they are reading. In reviewing this research. Wong (1985) points out thatthere are two styles of such questioning. The questions can be information-seeking,asked of the teacher, classmates, or of oneself; or they can be comprehension-monitoring, asked of oneself in the process of reading in order to evaluate one's stateof understanding. Didactic instruction in these two styles of questioning enhancesnot only the frequency and type of questions but also, on the whole, the student'sprocessing of prose and tested achievement of information read.

As regards generic instruction, the erotetic logician Harrah (1982) identifies themany uses of teaching the theories and logics of questions to students so that they canlearn how to obtain information in the most efficient way. Such instruction wouldinclude the notions of question, answer and rational question-asking.

Curriculum materials

Student question-asking behaviour can be enhanced by curriculum materials. Mostof these evidently have problematic characteristics or elements, but some of themapparently have nothing problematic about them at all.

Reading I listening. In a classic study, Berlyne and Frommer (1966) used oralstories and pictures with novel, surprising and incongruous elements to arouse the'epistemic curiosity' of grade-school children. In a similar vein, to enhancequestioning by first-graders, Nash and Torrance (1974) used reading materialsthat systematically emphasized incompleteness of knowledge —disharmonies,deficiencies, ambiguities, puzzling phenomena. These were used in the kind ofsmall-group brief sessions characteristic of primary reading instruction.

On a pre- and post-test question-asking task, the children doubled the numberof discrepant-event questions they asked (from 10 to 20 as a group mean), and theyhalved the obvious questions (from 12 to 6)-those answerable from the stimuluspicture. Compared to children using traditional reading materials, they asked fourtimes as many discrepant questions (20 vs. 5) and one-third as many obvious ones(6 vs. 18).

Viewing. Suchman's (1966) inquiry approach to teaching science involves thefilmed presentation of experiments with 'discrepant events' about which the pupilsare then provoked or required to ask questions. In a variant of this approach, Ivany(1969) showed eighth-grade science classes films that varied in the completeness ofthe description, formulation and solution of the problem situations being presented.Some classes viewed a film that presented everything completely. Other classes saw afilm showing all but the solution, and still others saw one with only the problemsituation (no verbal formulation or solution). A fourth group of classes viewed thethird type of film but were also given practice in identifying the various kinds ofquestion that can be asked about a problem. In the class discussion that followed thefilms, the different classes asked different amounts and types of questions.

By classroom average, students in the first group asked 179 questions (in eachsuch class), the second group asked 215 questions, the third asked 261, and the fourthasked 332. The proportion of 'analytical verification' questions for the four groupswas 31%, 40%, 44% and 52% whereas the proportion of 'concrete implication'questions was 29% for the first group and only 4% for each of the other three groups.

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204 J. T. DILLON

Thus both the amount and the quality of student questions may be said to haveincreased. The less the films formulated and solved the problems, the more thestudents asked questions and 'engaged in autonomous inquiry activity' (Ivany1969: 289).

Projecting. To identify the questions that pupils 'experience as close andpowerful' as they progress through school, Tamminen (1977; 1979) showedprojective photographs on the walls of classrooms from first through eleventh grade.The photographs showed a child's face, or a child lying in bed awake, or staring outof the window or talking with an adult. He wanted to know: 'What do they reflect on,and to which questions do they seek answers?' (Tamminen 1977: 148).

The 1558 students gave 10000 responses, categorized as questions about fears,the future, the purpose of life; problems between parents and children; social andworld problems (war, hunger, poverty, homelessness, pollution, racial discrimin-ation); religious problems; and the mystery of death: 'At all of the Finnish Grade-Levels, "problems" of the genesis of the world, or the meaning of life, or death, orlife after death appear to be almost equally frequently mentioned' (Tamminen1979: 12).

We might wonder where such questions are in our first through eleventh gradeclassrooms. Tamminen (1979) proposes these questions as material for 'problem-centred education'.

Handling. Torrance (1970) let some groups of kindergartners handle the toy intheir group, and others not. The 'manipulate' or 'handle-the-toy' groups asked farmore questions than the other groups (35 vs. 20). A slightly greater proportion oftheir questions were of a puzzling type (26% vs. 21%), and hence fewer were of anobvious type.

Finley (1921) did nothing more than bring a mud-puppy salamander intoelementary science classes, and the pupils asked an average of five spontaneousquestions each. He was of the view that children will inquire spontaneously if giventhe opportunity.

Varia. All manner and any number of other materials have been used toencourage student questioning. The familiar game of Twenty Questions has oftenbeen used (e.g. Mosher and Hornsby 1966). Gillin et al. (1972) have a book full ofindividual and group games with cards, sheets and pictures to develop students'asking of various types of question, including both oral and written questions.

Allender (1969) gave a simulated 'mayor's in-tray' to grade-school children.They sorted through the documents, memos and letters, asking questions, request-ing further documents or information about a particular item or a decision theydetected needed to be made. The results suggested to Allender that problem-sensinggenerated problem formulation, which in turn generates search behaviour.

In Soviet studies of mathematical reasoning (Doblaev 1969; Krutetskii 1969),children were given arithmetic word problems that either lacked the question at theend or contained insufficient information, or else had superfluous data disguising theproblem. The pupil thus 'had to guess by himself the question to which an answermust be given, and to formulate and pose this question' (Doblaev 1969).

Dillon (1983 b) got college students to ask questions about such items as a pagefrom the city telephone directory, a list of the number of government ministers in UNcountries, a table of statistics of degrees earned over this century, a magazineadvertisement for whiskey and a box of toothpicks. About these non-curiosities the50 undergraduates asked an average of 12 questions each.

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REMEDIAL STATUS OF STUDENT QUESTIONING 205

Pedagogical dispositionsStudent questioning can be enhanced by some things that some teachers can think,feel and do. On the whole, these are necessary but not sufficient causes for studentquestions to appear. Negative dispositions prevent student questions, but positivedispositions do not produce them. For each of the three kinds of disposition —cognitive, affective, behavioural —any number of particulars can be identified anddiscussed. Here only one or two dispositions of each kind will be selected forcomment (for details see Dillon, 1987).

Conceptions. Much depends on a teacher's notions about questions and their rolein learning. Right thinking will not ensure that students ask questions but anincorrect conception will certainly ensure that they do not.

Almost all educators can agree that questions are a 'good thing', that is questionsplay an important role in learning and thinking. And all will agree that we want tostimulate student thinking. From these premises two divergent conclusions aredrawn. The first is the dominant view in pedagogical theory: 'Teacher questionsstimulate student thought; so, teachers should ask questions to get the students tothink' (Bellack et al. 1966: 249). The second is occasionally heard and runs as follows:'Student questions stimulate student thought; so students should ask questions toget the students to think' (Dillon 1986).

Logic is incapable of deriving the conclusion in the first syllogism, and researchhas not been able to demonstrate it (see reviews by Dillon 1978; 1982; and Winne1979). Research has not examined the second conclusion. As noted, research has notbeen able to find enough student questions to examine.

Attitudes. Much also depends on the teacher's attitudes towards studentquestions. None will be heard in a class where the teacher holds inimical orindifferent attitudes towards the student. Yet none may also be heard where theteacher holds benevolent attitudes, even when combined with desirable notions.

Susskind (1969) asked teachers to tell him how many student questions theyregarded as desirable to hear during their half-hour lessons in science and socialstudies. Then he asked them how many student questions they estimated actuallyhearing from students during the half hour. The teachers estimated that they heardabout eight student questions in a half-hour lesson. Susskind heard only one. Theteachers further estimated that they themselves asked about 15 questions during ahalf-hour lesson. Susskind recorded 42.

The pupils were not asking questions and the teachers were asking greatnumbers of questions. The teachers did not perceive this difference, nor were theywell disposed towards it: 'The teachers and administrators are strongly opposed tothis situation in theory, but are unaware that it exists in their classroom' (Susskind1969: 146).

Actions. In addition to holding correct notions and good attitudes, teachers takeright or wrong actions. As before, the wrong actions will prevent student questions,but neither stopping the wrong actions nor taking the right actions will producethem. The general thing that teachers can do is to create the conditions for studentquestions. There are many conditions that teachers cannot create, and there aremany specific actions that teachers can take in creating those conditions that theycan. Here are three:

(a) Stop asking questions.(b) Invite student questions and wait patiently for them.(c) Welcome student questions when they come.

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206 J. x. DILLON

The first right action is to stop asking questions, or to ask far fewer questions.The reason for the Tightness of this action is simple. When a teacher is askingquestions, what the students are doing is giving answers. And students have noopportunity to turn around and ask questions.

The rules for turn-taking are simple. When someone - especially someone like ateacher - asks you a question, what you must do in your turn is to give a response; thenext turn belongs not to you but to the one who asked the question; that person canuse that turn to comment on your response and/or ask a further question.

The rules in classrooms are clear. After an answer, as indeed at any time, thenext turn at talk belongs to the teacher. The teacher uses this turn to evaluate theanswer and then to put a further question for a further answer. That is what ishappening when it is the case that the teacher is asking questions. In that case, thereis no turn in the series for the student to ask a question.

Moreover, there are no dynamics such that the student would ask a question. Ina question-answer relationship, the answerer is passive, reactive and dependent.When students participate in such a relationship over extended hours, days and yearsof schooling, they do not become active, independent inquiring learners, that isstudents do not ask questions. Students answer questions, they have no opportunityto ask questions, and they have no dynamics for asking questions.

Therefore the first right action for the teacher to take is to stop asking questions.That is a peculiarly difficult action for a teacher to take (and for good reasons).Furthermore, that will not of itself result in student questions, but it will create theconditions for students to ask. (For an alternative turn-taking mechanism thatallocates to students turns for asking questions during recitation, see Dillon 1987).

The second right action is to invite student questions and then wait patiently forthem. 'Invite' is a loose term covering any number of particular techniques that areavailable or imaginable for use (e.g. Dillon 1987; and Hunkins 1976). 'Wait' and'patiently' are literal terms.

It should be evident that students, conditioned over years and across otherclasses, will not all of a sudden burst forth with questions in your class period. Theymust detect, adopt and test unfamiliar norms and behaviour; they may have to learnto ask questions in a classroom.

In one most engaging study, Helseth (1926) followed for the whole year aneighth-grade class where the teacher 'threw all of her teaching power' into getting thepupils to ask questions. In September there were none; in October-November somechildren 'awkwardly, almost blindly, stumbled in their attempts'; in December-February there were more questions; and in March-May yet more. Participationrates increased from 40% in September to 55% in January to 84% in May: 'InSeptember they sat passive... In May the pupils themselves introduced theproblems on which they desired help in solving' (Helseth 1926: 74).

The third right action is to welcome student questions when they come. Whatthe teacher does in reacting to student questions is of surpassing importance. The actof reacting will teach the students whether or not students are to ask questions in thisclass. Here is a matter for pedagogical tact and skill; and tact and skill are called foreven from the teacher who is well-disposed towards student questions. For one canwant students to ask questions and at the same time one can act in such a way thatthey will not ask questions. Here again it is a matter of particular techniques. A longlist of ways for 'fielding' student questions has been specified by Hyman (1980) withthe proviso that we do not as yet know which techniques will do that. Researchers

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have yet to find enough student questions to permit a systematic examination ofteachers' reactions to them.

In deciding which particular technique to try, a teacher can reflect on themeaning of the technique as it is received by the student who has asked the question.In that person's eyes, what sort of reaction would be a welcoming one? Will thisreaction say to the student: 'You have acted rightly and commendably in asking aquestion'. Particulars will always vary, but one particular malpractice must be cited,that of reacting with a question. This needs to be cited because it is part of teachers'general tendency to ask questions, and it is itself a tendency when a student has askeda question. In elementary classrooms, Mishler (1975) observed that teachersresponded with a question in two out of three cases of pupil questions. This actteaches the pupils that they are not to ask but to answer questions.

Yet we should know that other people and other conditions are also teachingstudents not to ask questions. There are powerful social norms against studentquestioning. In a survey of teacher trainees (Dillon 1981 b), the major reason givenfor not asking questions in the classroom was fear of a negative reaction-fromclassmates, not solely from the teacher.

The display of ignorance, confusion and lack of comprehension is counter-normative in classrooms and it is counternormative in non-school situations.Students do not ask questions, but neither do patients of doctors, witnesses oflawyers, interviewees of interviewers, strangers of strangers, adults of adults, orsubordinates of superiors. In all these cases, permission to ask must first be soughtand granted. Where permission to ask is freely granted by the correctly thinking,well-intentioned and rightly acting teacher, it may yet be negated by other actors andconditions both within and without the classroom.

There is only so much that a teacher can do, and on balance it is not much. Ateacher can develop correct notions of questioning, adopt good attitudes towardsstudent questions, and take right actions in their favour. The thing to do is to createthe conditions for students' questions. First, the teacher can stop asking questions,so that the students have the opportunity to ask and the dynamics to ask. Second, theteacher can invite student questions and await them patiently, so that the studentscan work out ways to express them. Third, the teacher can welcome studentquestions when they come, so that the students are confirmed in their act of askingquestions.

These are generalities. The particulars are manifold, and they are a matter forcareful choice by a particular teacher in particular pedagogical circumstances. And itis certain that their effect will be particular, not general: they may or may notencourage these students to ask those questions.

We will not as a result observe an increase in student questioning, for there arehundreds of thousands of teachers who do not exhibit facilitative notions, attitudesand actions towards student questions, there are other people in the classroom and inthe school who do not exhibit these, there are other conditions and factors in theschool apart from the teacher and the classroom, and there are conditions and factorsapart from those in the school.

Systemic conditions

There are some very good reasons why students do not ask questions, and thesereasons are also very big ones — the predominant goals of education, the structures ofthe school, the relations between adults and children, the socialization into

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208 J. T. DILLON

institutional and situational authority roles. As student questioning has beeninhibited —in greater part —by these systemic conditions since the onset of observ-ational research around the turn of the century, and as no contemporary factors canbe perceived that might cause such change, no enhancement of student questioningin our lifetime will be observed. Schooling will be a process of knowledgetransmission, and learning will not become a process of knowledge seeking.

This argument refers to student questioning as an object of that generalized,summative and public knowledge that we seek to hold about education. Of course itdoes not mean that now and again some individual will not see here and there one ortwo more student questions. But that in turn will either not be publicly known, ornot describe the general case, whether in knowledge or practice.

Conclusion

— 'Well, then,' proposed Socrates, 'if you should ever be charged in actual fact with theupbringing and education of these imaginary children of yours... so you will make a lawthat they must devote themselves especially to the discipline which will make them mastersof the technique of asking and answering questions.'

-'Yes, I will, with your collaboration' (Republic VII.534).

Most pupils, even in the early grades, have become masters at answeringquestions. Few students, even by late-graduate school, have become more than anovice at asking questions. The remedial status of student questioning appears to beits normative state in past, present and future schooling.

Nothing much can be done about this situation in general. But something can bedone in particular. Those teachers who would educate the Socrates within thechildren before them can, by doing the little that can be done, make of theirclassroom a place for asking as well as answering questions. And that, in particular,would invite a great whole world of inquiry.

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