Sakarya University Journal of Education (Apr 2015)
The Effects of Quantity and Quality of Teachers’ Probing and Guiding Questions on Student Performance
Abstract
This study investigated the types, quantity, and quality of teacher questions and their impact on student understanding. In contrast to previous studies, in order to obtain optimum effects of question types, quantity, and quality, this study controlled for variables such as teachers’ experience, textbooks used, and teachers’ mathematics preparation knowledge, all of which may affect student achievement. The data were collected from 33 7th- and 8th-grade teachers in 2 different states, Texas and Delaware, who participated in a longitudinal project. A total of 103 videotapes were obtained. For the 1st research question, Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was run with 2 levels; student and teacher. For the 2nd question, inter-correlations were computed between the variables. We found that the quality teachers’ probing questions significantly predicted student performance when other variables were controlled. We also found that the quality and quantity of guiding questions and probing questions significantly correlated.
