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Teacher questioning: effect on student communication in middle school algebra mathematics classrooms

This study investigates the components within teacher questioning and how they
affect communication within the mathematics classroom. Components examined are the
type of question, the amount of wait time allowed, the use of follow-up questions, and
the instructional setting. The three types of questions analyzed in this study were highorder,
low-order, and follow-up questions. High-order questions are defined as questions
which promote analysis, synthesis or evaluation of information versus low-order
questions which only seek procedural or knowledge of basic recall of information. The
third type of question, follow-up, is the second question asked of a student when the
initial question is not answered or answered incorrectly.
This study observed video of three teachers from three different adjacent school
districts. Upon watching three lessons of each teacher and recording data, conclusions
were made. All three teachers were found to use low-order questions at least 50% of the
time during instruction. Wait time following high-order questions met the minimum
three second time as suggested from previous researchers. Follow-up questions were
found to occur more frequently after high-order questions, but followed similar trends as
stated above related to the type of question asked. Instructional setting does differ in the types of questions asked with a small group setting more likely to elicit high-order
questions than a whole group setting. The researcher concluded that high-order questions
with a minimum of three seconds wait time in a small group setting encourage
communication within the mathematics classroom.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/5749
Date17 September 2007
CreatorsMatthiesen, Elizabeth Aprilla
ContributorsCapraro, Robert M.
PublisherTexas A&M University
Source SetsTexas A and M University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeBook, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text
Format298662 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital

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