STUDENT

QUESTIONING:
A
COMPONENTIAL
ANALYSIS
HANS VAN DER MEIJ
TWENTE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT:
This article reviews the literature on student questioning,
organized through a modified version of Dillons (1988a, 1990) componential model
of questioning. Special attention is given to the properties of assumptions, questions, and answers. Each of these main elements are the result of certain actions
of the questioner, which are described. Within this framework a variety of aspects of questioning are highlighted. One focus of the article is individual differences in question asking. The complex interactions between students personal
characteristics, social factors, and questioning are examined. In addition, a number of important but neglected topics for research are identified. Together, the
views that are presented should deepen our understanding
of student questioning.

The focus of this review is on spontaneous student questioning. Questioning is

depicted from start to finish, from the onset of perplexity until the learning that
may result. In addition, the characteristic features of questions are described, the
assumptions that underlie them, and the answers that follow. Special attention
will be given to individual differences in question asking per se and to individual
differences in general constructs such as verbal ability and self-esteem that are
related to question asking. All of these ideas will be presented within the general
framework of the (slightly modified) componential model of questioning of Dillon (1988a, 1990).
This model gives a coherent view on questioning in which the many and
diverse studies that relate to student questioning can be placed. That this is not a
trivial matter should be clear considering the fact that relevant findings on the
topic of student questions can be found in more than a dozen disciplines (e.g.,
logic, computer science, linguistics,
pedagogy and psychology,
see Dillon,
1982a, 1986a, 1990), all of which have their own terminology and variety of
dependent measures detailing some aspects of questioning.
Another reason for using the componential model was to discover unexplored
Direct all commondance
to: Hans van der Meii. Deoartment of Instructional Technoloav.
__ Twnte
AE Enschede, thk Netherlands.
learning and Individual Differences, Volume 6, Number 2, 1994, pages 137-161.
All riahts of reproduction in any form reserved.

Universitv. P.O. Box 217. 7500

Copyright 0 1994 by JAI Press, Inc.

ISSN: 1041-6060

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territory. Dillons model (198823, 1990) has not (yet) been used as the basis for
research on questioning and there was thus a fair chance that the model would
help find blind spots. In addition, it seemed likely that the model would yield
new insights because it required an integration of various points of view. Thus,
the review was also set up in a speculative fashion, aiming to find new and
pertinent issues on student questioning.
Clearly then, this is a selective review in which some studies have been left out
unintentionally,
and others have been ignored intentionally. The article is, for
example, not a review on question posing, on the asking of questions that do not
originate with the student. The study, therefore, does not review the broad body
of research on adjunct questions, nor that on teacher questioning,
The presentation of the componential model of student questioning is preceded by a brief
discussion on defining questions.

A COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONING

Recognizing questions is easy in everyday life. Most people know a question
when they hear one. In research, this is not so. Characterizing a question is
difficult and most definitions give but a limited view on what asking a question
means.
Let us, for example, examine the most prominent one, the linguistic definition. A prototypical example can be found in Websters dictionary, whose first
description of a question is that of an expression of inquiry that requires or
invites an informative reply. In this definition, the aspects form and function
merit special attention.
First, the form or expression is usually taken to mean a certain kind of verbal
expression. As is emphasized in Websters second description. A question is an
interrogative
sentence or phrase. Typical verbal cues by which questions are
distinguished
are: the presence of a rising intonation, predicate subject inversion, the presence of interrogatives such as who, why, what, where, and special
tags as in the sentence It is late, isnt it?
The limitations of this interpretation
are obvious to anyone who has ever
asked a question nonverbally. Questions can be expressed in many ways other
than by words alone. Every parent knows, for example, that children ask many
things non-verbally before they can express their desires with words. They raise
their hands in order to be picked up, they come towards you with a book making
it clear somehow that you should read it to them, and so on.
The second noteworthy aspect of the definition is that of the questions function. A question is meant to elicit a response that can satisfy the questioner.
More particularly, Websters definition refers to an information-seeking
purpose
by speaking of an inquiry to obtain an ~~for~n~fivereply {emphasis added). This
function is focal in most of the research on questioning and the questions that
serve it are known as real or genuine information-seeking
questions.
The limitations of this interpretation too are clear. Questions can serve many

Student Questioning: A Cofnponential Analysis

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other purposes than to satisfy a persons curiosity, as in Can you pass me the
salt? Moreover, they can serve more than one purpose at the same time. Questions may have all sorts of doubles attached to them. For example, a students
questions to the teacher may simultaneously
serve to inform, comfort, and
motivate.
Its defects notwithstanding,
the de~nition is a useful point of departure for
research because it draws the attention to two important dimensions of questions (i.e., form and function), both of which have been the subject of research,
as will be shown in the discussion of the componential model.

OVERVIEW
In various books and papers, Dillon (1982a, 1986a, 1988a, 1990) has integrated
insights from a variety of disciplines into a compelling view of what it means
when someone asks a question. A slightly modified version of the componential
model presented by Dillon (1988a, 1990) forms the basis of this review. In this
modified model the processes of questioning are linked to their static components. In Dillons work these views have been presented separately. In addition,
Dillon has described the static components to capture mainly question posing,
whereas this article deals only with question asking.*
Questioning can be described as an ordered event involving three main moments or stages (see Figure 1). The first stage is the onset of questioning. In this
stage a person becomes perplexed. That is, a discrepancy between something
known and some new information is noted, or the person may encounter an
unexpected outcome or find something puzzling. In the second stage a question
is developed. The persons perplexity is then transformed into a formulated and
expressed question. In the third stage an answer is sought and processed into a
new proposition that the questioner now holds to be true. In the left part of
Figure 1 the various processes involved in the three stages are described.
Dillon (1990) suggests that there is one static component in each stage that
demands the particular attention of researchers. It is a component that can either
be observed or inferred. For the onset of questioning the main component is the
assumptions of the questioner, the things the questioner takes to be true without
proof or demonstration.
During the development of the question the main component is the question itself. In the third stage the answer is focal.
Dillon (1990) also suggests that each component should further be subdivided
into a sentence and an act to show its logical and pragmatic properties. The
sentences reveal what content is communicated in questioning. The acts reveal
the motivational and social-communicative
aspects involved (see Figure 1).

STAGE 1: THE ONSET OF QUESTlONiNG

Questioning can be triggered internally or externally. Perplexity, the resulting
moment of this stage, may arise internally. For example, a person may relate

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certain known facts to one another and discover that they contradict one another, or his or her reflections may create uncertainty about some previous knowledge. Perplexity can also be triggered by external cues, by events or phenomena
in the environment of the questioner (e.g., Berlyne & Frommer 1966; Garner,
Alexander, Gillingham, Kulikowich, & Brown 1991; Markman 1979; Chinn &
Brewer 1993). For example, a surprising fact or theory presented in a textbook
can elicit questioning. In both cases the result is a state of perplexity.
Research on questioning has concentrated on the external conditions for triggering perplexity. It is believed that the most likely condition leading to such a
perplexity occurs when a stimulus resembles something well-known but is also
distinct enough to be interesting. If it is too remote from experience, or too
familiar, the reaction will be one of indifference (Berlyne 1960, 1965; Isaacs 1930;
cf. Chinn I? Brewer 1993).
In a slightly different way this idea is echoed in the research hypothesis that
question asking frequency is at its peak when prior knowledge is moderate
(Miyake & Norman 1979). When a person has little prior knowledge there is
supposedly no foundation for questions to arise. In contrast, when there is
much prior knowledge many questions need not be asked as the facts are known
or can be inferred. There is by now a wide body of research indicating that this
intuitively appealing idea has not been held up in research. Nine out of ten
studies find an inverse linear correlation between number of questions and prior
knowledge; subjects with less prior knowledge ask more questions (for a review,
see Van der Meij 1991 1992). It is, therefore, unfortunate that the frequency
hypothesis is still widely cited in the literature. More importantly, it draws away
the attention from more interesting issues on student questioning such as the
motivations for asking questions, the obstacles to formulating and expressing
questions, the difference between internally and externally triggered questioning, and the educational potential of not-answering student questions.

Presuppositions. The presuppositions

are all the propositions entailed by the
question. Every question contains presuppositions.
For example, two presuppositions to the question Does the Queen of the Netherlands have red hair?
are: (1) there is a Queen of the Netherlands,
and (2) the Queen is a person,
animal, or thing with hair as an attribute.
It is often in reference to these presuppositions,
and the thoughts that spur
perplexity, that questions are seen as an important diagnostic, as a window to
the mind (see Flammer 1986). And it is to this aspect of questioning that people
refer when they stress that questions reveal what a person does not know and
what he or she does know.
In order to really understand the question one must get to know its most
critical presupposition(s),
the one(s) to which the questioner is committed. This
knowledge is vitally important not only for understanding the question but also
for answering. Galambos and Black (1985) give an illuminating example. Suppose, they say, you hear the following question Why did Sam eat dinner at the
Copper Beach Restaurant ? If you understand the question to be one about

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Sams motivation for eating, your response might be something like Because he
was hungry. But if you were to understand the question as one about why Sam
chose that particular restaurant, your response would be totally different and
you might say He had heard that this was a good restaurant and he wanted to
try it. In short, to understand a question, respondents
should consider the
different meanings implied by the question (e.g., Graesser, Byrne, & Behrens
1992; Robertson 1993).
Special attention should be given to the truthfulness or validity of the presuppositions (Dillon 1990). For example, when a student asks a question whose
presupposition
the respondent
knows to be false, a cooperative respondent
should deal with the presupposition
rather than answer the question to avoid
saying something that is untrue. In addition, according to Grices cooperativity
maxims, a refutation is also likely to be a more relevant and informative response
(see Grice 1975). However, Chinn and Brewers (1993) review on the role of
anomalous data in knowledge acquisition makes one wonder in what conditions
refutations do not have the positive effect presumed by Grices cooperativity
maxims. In addition, it is noteworthy
that question answering systems in
computers appear to have difficulties in handling invalid presuppositions
(and
other pragmatic issues). For example, questions based on such presuppositions
have been called misleading because the system responds to them as if they
were true (Robertson, Black, & Lehnert 1985), or the questioner is assumed to be
cooperative, asking his or her question only of someone who can reasonably be
expected to share the presupposition(s)
(Robertson 1993).

Presumptions. The presumptions relate to the personal motives and beliefs, and
to the social-communicative
aspects of questioning. Among others they describe
certain conditions that the questioner holds to be true. The primary presumption
for many question types is that the questioner believes in the truthfulness or
validity of the presuppositions.
In addition, Dillon (1986a, 1986b) has suggested
that a person asking a genuine information-seeking
question holds the following
eight standard attitudes: ignorance, perplexity, need, desire, commitment, belief, faith, courage, and will (cf. Flammer 1986; Van der Meij 1987).
Surely, the primary presumption is among the more important ones to study.
For example, it should be of interest to find out how often students ask questions
for which they know the presuppositions
to be false (as interrogators do with
trick questions). Likewise, it may be worthwhile to examine presuppositions
that these students hold to be true only partially, or to study presuppositions
they may have flagged as temporarily true (just as researchers flag certain ideas
or findings, cf. Rescher 1982). To my knowledge, research on student questioning has given little to no attention to these issues.
In addition, it would be valuable to know how often Dillons (1990) standard
presumptions
are true for student questions in classrooms. There is some research suggesting that the frequency of information-seeking
questions may be
significantly lower than the already alarmingly low overall frequency of student
questions. For example, researchers have sometimes qualified a students questioning as executive and excessive (as opposed to instrumental) to signal a depar-

Student Questioning: A Componential Analysis

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ture from the standard attitudes. Students showing these kinds of questioning
behavior do not exhibit need, will, or desire to learn from the response they
receive. Instead, it is their intention to have the teacher or respondent solve the
problem on their behalf, to rid themselves of the unpleasant state of ignorance
(e.g., Aberbach & Lynch 1991; Nelson-LeGall 1985; Nelson-LeGall & Glor-Scheib
1985).
There is also some evidence for the non-information-seeking
background of
student questions from a within classroom experiment that two students and I
conducted. In that study, students were given a lesson that seemed like a regular
lesson, but for the fact that the individual assignments were tasks that they
already knew how to solve (95% correct on similar problems given in a lesson
three days earlier, Van der Meij, Meer, & Ponte 1989). We expected a small
decline in information-seeking
questions which would indicate that some of
these questions, typically formulated as I dont know this, would not stem
from a genuine need for information. To our surprise, a significant increase of
the number of questions asked was observed. In fact, there were almost twice as
many information-seeking
questions. When we further examined this outcome
we found that the best predictor of the students behavior during the experiment
was their question-asking
frequency during regular lessons. That is, a student
who would ask but one or two questions during regular lessons would do so also
during the experimental lesson and so on. We took this to suggest that some of
the questions these students regularly ask only resemble true informationseeking questions; they are probably not primarily be intended to find necessary
or missing information.
Social norms can also affect questioning, of course. There has been a considerable debate whether student question asking is a signal of dependency and
should be discouraged most of the time, or whether it really signals independence and should be encouraged most of the time. Authors such as NelsonLeGall (1985) and Newman (1992), who support the latter view, argue that
questioning is an adaptive action of the student helping him or her to regulate
learning. Even the students themselves express some ambiguity on this matter,
and factors such as their age, the type of helper, and work situation have been
found to affect their concerns with being or becoming independent (e.g., Newman & Goldin 1990; Van der Meij 1988).
There is also a fair body of research suggesting that certain personal characteristics of students significantly affect their questioning.
The ones that have
been studied most intensively here are achievement, achievement motivation,
and self-esteem
(e.g., Good, Slavings, Harel, & Emerson 1987; Nadler 1983;
Nelson-LeGall
1985; Newman 1992; Shell & Eisenberg 1992; Van der Meij 1990b).
For example, Goods passivity theory suggests that low achieving students have
learned to become less involved in schoolwork, to become non-question askers.
This, the theory suggests, is a reaction to the negative responses these students
usually receive to their behavior in classrooms. Thus, whereas low achievers
begin school asking as many questions as their peers, they come to ask fewer
questions during their school period.
In a broad survey on question asking in school this prediction was substanti-

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ated and interactions with school and age were found (Good, Slavings, Hobson,
Harel, & Emerson 1987; Good, Slavings, & Mason 1988). In addition, the researchers suggested that good questioning skills of students and positive teacher
reactions may reinforce one another, leading to a favorable atmosphere for student questioning. In contrast, when students do not express their questions very
well teachers may structure their classroom to avoid problems. That is, when
students ask vague questions, when they pose questions at the wrong time, or
for the wrong purpose (e.g., to avoid listening), teachers may react by imposing
restrictive rules (Good et al. 1988).
It is also possible that the various personal characteristics needed for questioning work against one another, and, indeed, that a single characteristic (e.g., selfesteem) stimulates perplexity and obstructs the expression of a question. Unfortunately, there is little research on this matter because studies on student
questioning often do not distinguish between the first two stages of questioning.
That is, they study only the presence or absence of a question being asked.
This may be an important neglect. It is quite likely that the effects of personal
characteristics
such as ability, achievement, and self-esteem differ for these two
stages. For example, in one study I found that low self-esteem students indicated significantly
higher levels of perplexity (i.e., uncertainty) but this did
not lead to the expression of more questions (Van der Meij 1989). Because
self-esteem,
ability, and achievement
tend to be positively correlated to one
another, one explanation for this finding may be that the positive effects of one
on the onset of questioning
are weakcharacteristic
(e.g., low self-esteem)
ened by the effects of another characteristic (e.g., low verbal ability) needed to
support the formulation of a question. An alternative explanation would be that
self-esteem aIone might account for the result, because, according to the vulnerability hypothesis (see Nadler 1983), a person with a low self-esteem is especially
prone to protect his or her self-image and hence will be hindered in posing
questions.
Finally, it is likely that the motives for asking a question may stem from a
combination
of needs rather than just a single purpose. That is, even when
students ask questions primarily to seek necessary information, secondary motives such as a need for emotional support or for social companionship
may be
attached to these questions (cf. Evers & Westgeest-DeGraaf
1989; Newman 1992;
Van der Meij, Meer, & Ponte 1989). In addition, students might also use their
questioning as an impression management tactic, as a means to create a favorable impression on others (cf. Fuhrer 1989). These various goals may affect the
formulation and expression of questions and the responses given to them.

STAGE 2: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A QUESTION

In the second stage the student must come to grips with what perplexes and
make it more tangible. The student must articulate and express the problem or
perplexity. Whereas this articulation may take place almost simultaneously with
perplexity, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, it is quite likely that the

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transition from perplexity to the formulation and expression of a question is a

most difficult process.
The difference between being perplexed and framing a question can perhaps
best be illustrated by comparing it to the subtle difference between problem
finding and problem formulation. Whereas the first refers to finding the problem
area, it is only the second that enables the person to start a creative attack to the
problem (Dillon 1982b; Getzels 1982, 1988; Subotnik & Moore 1988; cf. Paradice
1992).
It is this stage to which one can allocate research concerning the kinds of
questions people ask. Surely the research on the development
of childrens
questions has been among the most influential in this respect. Not only does this
research indicate when certain questions first emerge, such as when children
begin asking questions that inquire after the causes of things, but also how these
questions should be interpreted (e.g., initially as maids of all work, Piaget 1959)
and how the environment
responds to them (e.g., Callanan & Oakes 1992;
Tizard & Hughes 1984; Vygotksij 1962).
To this stage also belong the various typologies on questions. These typologies
typicahy serve both to diagnose the meaning and origin of questions and to
structure the respondents actions. For example, computer scientists often use a
typology of questions to identify classes of question structures (i.e., question
categories) that, in turn, improve the chances of generating a response that
satisfies the request of the questioner (e.g., Graesser, Byrne, & Behrens 1992;
Hartley & Smith 1988; Lehnert 1978; Pilkington 1992; Robertson, Weber, Ullman,
& Mehta 1993).

~r~ulation.
In formulation the questioner invents the logical or conceptual units
of the question and relates these units to one another. In simple terms, the
person must find the right words and sfrucfure for the question (cf. Allen 1987;
Dillon 1990). This is the stage for studies into the what of peoples questions.
The difficulty in formulating questions has been studied in research comparing question selection with question generation, In the selection condition students can choose what question(s) they want to ask from a prearranged set.
They have, so to speak, their question(s) prepared for them. In the generation
condition students must formulate the question(s) themselves.
Among others, these comparisons suggest that formulation poses formidable
barriers to questioning
and that verbal ability strongly affects this phase of
questioning (Van der Meij 1990a, 199Ob, 1990~). For example, fifth-graders with
low verbal ability were found to have severe problems with formulating questions to find the meaning of a word (Van der Meij 1990b; Van der Meij & Dillon
in press). One of their problems resided in formulating a question altogether.
That is, some of these students were observed to start with the stem of a question, fail to frame a question, and then give up, asking nothing at all. Another
problem was noted in the questions these students did express. In general,
these questions were not very discriminative (e.g., Does imitate have something
to do with doing something) or they added little to what was already given

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(e.g., Has rsfimafiun something to do with estimate?). In contrast, students

with high verbal ability more often came up with their own thoughts about the
target words and formulated sharper questions (e.g., Has estimation something
to do with making a guess?).
In question selection studies manipulation checks are necessary to exclude the
possibility that the presentation of ready (i.e.. formulated) questions affects the
onset of questions (i.e., perplexity). In most studies that try to stimulate student
questioning (for reviews see Wong 1985; Rosenshine & Chapman 1992) there is
no such control and it cannot be determined whether students are prompted to
wonder about things, or whether they are helped to articulate their perplexity.
The formulation problem is also widely recognized in the computer industry
where various attempts have been made to create user-friendly point and query
devices to alleviate it (e.g., Lang, Graesser, Dumais, & Kilman 1992; Schank
1993). Interestingly, here too people are given a set of questions from which to
choose. But here, instead of a mere means to study the problems of formulating
questions, the selection procedure is turned into a useful tool for stimulating
questioning.
Another interesting view on the formulation problem is presented by Chinn
and Brewer (1993) who describe the various ways in which science students
react when confronted with a perplexing fact (i.e., anomolous data). Among
others, these authors suggest that students sometimes cope with their perplexity
by ignoring, rejecting or holding in abeyance certain data, In addition, some
perplexities may prompt certain types of questions or hypotheses and lead to the
design of critical experiments that can confirm or disconfirm the validity of the
data.
With regard to the questions structure, one of the most salient factors in
research is the openness of questions. At one end of this dimension one finds
questions that include their own answer (e.g., rhetorical questions). At the other
end one finds questions for which any response would appear to qualify as an
answer. Here one might think of single worded expressions like Huh? and
Uh? as examples. In experiments,
the questions studied are somewhat less
extreme than the above examples, but they stil1 differ widely. The dominant type
of closed question studied is the one that can be answered by a ,Yes, a No, a
Maybe, or a Dont know. In contrast, there is no dominant type of open
question because, by their very nature, these questions hardly cue the answerer,
the answers are more open.
Provocative research in this area includes studies that compare the effects of
external and internal stimuli on the quality of student questions. The scarce
investigations
on this topic strongly suggest that questioning that is prompted
by the persons own reflections leads to deeper, more fundamental questions
than questioning that is prompted by external factors such as the textbook or
teacher (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1992; Scardamalia & Bereiter 1991, 1992; cf.
Brown 1992; Fishbein, Van Leeuwen, & Langmeyer 1992; King 1992; Van der
Meij 1993; Van Zee & Minstrel1 1991, 1993).
Yet another salient type of research addresses questions asked in a series,

Student Questioning: A Componential Analysis

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where a following query is contingent in some ways on a previous question and

its answer. There are many situations in which a single question can best be
comprehended
by looking at the series of questions from which it forms a part.
There are at least two related, and yet distinct, lines of research on such strategic
questioning: questioning to solve problems, and questioning to learn how to do
something. Each of these approaches will be described below.
One line of research on strategic questioning concentrates on questioning to
solve abstract problems. In general, this research centers around how well subjects succeed in narrowing down the number of afternative solutions through
their questions. Among others, this issue has been studied extensively in the
twenty-questions
game. In this game, originally a parlor game dating from the
late nineteenth century, students can ask yes/no questions in order to guess an
object. The goal is to solve a problem using as few questions as possible.
The two main strategies that are generally found are hypothesis testing and
constraint seeking (Mosher & Hornsby 1968). That is, in order to solve the
problem I have a blue object in mind, a hypothesis tester would typically ask
questions like Is it your eyes?, Is it the sky? or Is it that pencil over there?.
In contrast, a constraint seeker might ask Is it in this room?, Is it animate?,
Can it move? and so on. Constraint seeking is less direct, but more strategic
and more efficient than hypothesis testing.
The questioning in the game was also linked to the domain at hand. That is,
students tended to ask several questions about one domain before asking questions about another (e.g., Siegler 1977; Van der Meij 1986; cf. Schraagen 1993). In
order to find the cause of a car accident they would, for example, first ask
various questions about the driver as a possibIe cause (e.g., Did the driver cause
it?, Was the driver not careful?, Was he drunk?), before asking questions
about other possible causes such as external circumstances or defects to the car.
This fits well with the more general observation that questioners tend to explore
facets of a category (or slots in a schema) before rejecting a category or specializing search within a facet.
In general, the search strategies have been found to depend on both the age of
the questioner and the stage of the game (Siegler 1977; Van der Meij 1986). Not
surprisingly, constraint seeking tends to increase with age. Older students more
often follow a constraint seeking approach than younger ones. In addition,
questioning is often more strategic at the beginning of the game; the first questions exclude more options than later questions.
The second line of studies on strategic questioning focuses on the questions
people ask when they learn how to do something. This research has aimed
to study the effects of schemata and scripts on a persons questioning, and attention is given to the asking of generalizable,
higher-order (and yet domainrelated) questions. For example, investigators have examined whether subjects
ask questions about goal states, about solution methods, necessary materials,
end states and so on.
Notable research on this matter comes from Flammer and his colleagues
(Flammer 1986; Flammer, Grob, Leuthardt, & Luthi 1982a, 1982b, 1984; Flammer,

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Kaiser, & Luthi 1981; Flammer, Kaiser, & Miller-Bouquet

1981; cf. Letovksy
1986). In the Flammer et al. (1984) experiment, subjects had to prepare a mousse
au chocolat after having been allowed to ask all information they felt would be
necessary. The results showed that the subjects did rzoffollow the recipe-making
script very closely, but an interaction between prior knowledge and the dominance of certain question types was found. Subjects with more cooking knowledge asked more higher-order questions. That is, their questions more often
dealt with the organizational aspects of the task and with goal and end states. In
general, this positive effect of prior knowledge on the asking of higher-order
questions has also been observed in a variety of other studies (e.g., Fuhrer 1989;
Scardamalia & Bereiter 1992; Schraagen 1993).
From the latter type of research it is only a small step to the study of the
In questioning research little research is
sequencing
of particular questions.
conducted on this matter. One of the topics that seems worthwhile to examine is
whether the question types in various stages of learning differ in a predictable
way. For example, one might expect that goal formation and plan questions
appear mainly at the beginning learning stage, information processing, act and
regulative questions in the middle, and evaluative questions at the end (cf. Kato
1986; Robertson & Swartz 1988; Schraagen 1993; Smith, Tykodi, & Mynatt 1988).
Alternatively,
one might also want to consider characterizing
questions acactivities in
cording to their support for tuning, accretion, and restructuring
learning (cf. Miyake 1986). In conducting such research it will be important to
allow questioning
during learning rather than only in advance of it. Because
such a procedure affects questioning it will be important to pay special attention
to controllability.
How can the researcher make sure that all respondents are treated in the same
manner? On this matter the Flammer studies are again exemplary, suggesting
the need for a complete scenario covering task content, question typing and
response strategies (cf. Van der Meij 1992).
In general, questioning research has paid little attention to the overall purposes for which information-seeking
questions are being asked. In this respect
one might consider following a distinction that has been made in reading. That
is, it may be helpful to distinguish between questioning to gain knowledge (to
understand), questioning to do (to act), and questioning to locate information (to
search). Each of these purposes may have its distinct effects on questioning and
may affect what should be studied in questioning. As related above, questioning
should perhaps also be linked to the various stages and processes in learning.

Expression. This term refers to the act of putting the question into words. Questions vary widely with regard to how they are expressed and which characteristics of the questioner they reveal. In many classrooms, however, questioning is
bound to rules students must obey. In most cases these rules, which are meant
to regulate the interactions,
obstruct questioning.
For example, teachers often
impose rules on the frequency and nature of student-student
interactions.
In
addition, explicit and implicit rules often regulate the interactions between stu-

Student Questioning: A Componential Analysis

149

dents and teachers (Van der Meij 1988). These rules make posing a question in
the classroom a highly conspicuous affair (e.g., during instruction questions
must be signaled by raising a hand and during seatwork the student must walk
up to the teachers desk at the front of the classroom), and frequently students
verbally and nonverbally show their deference to the teacher in their questions.
Many students even appear to be afraid to pose the questions they have in
mind, leading Dillon to the suggestion that the last move in this stage, the
expression of the question, is the most difficult to take. Fully 95 per cent of the
questions that we have in mind to ask we never go on to utter. As before, we
may think the better of it and follow one of the numerous other paths available.
These include keeping quiet and giving off that we know and understand
(Dillon 1988a, p. 20). The most important issue to consider with regard to expressing a question, therefore, concerns the factors that cause questions to be dissolved or that block their expression. These causes vary, of course. Personal but
also social-normative
factors are operative.
The expression of questions in the classroom often seems to be blocked by
contextual factors. Students are afraid to pose their questions because of a fear of
being shamed for asking a stupid question, a desire not to impose on the teachers time, or the belief in some rule of conduct prohibiting the asking at that time
(e.g., Karabenick 1991; Karabenick & Knapp 1988; Karabenick & Sharma 1991;
Newman 1992; Van der Meij 1988, 1990b). For example, asking a question in
large group settings is much more difficult than asking the same question in
small groups or to individuals (cf. Fuhrer 1989). It is not that people have no
question to ask. It is only the condition which is so unfavorable for the asking, or
so it seems. Indeed, most lecturers and teachers probably know some students
who never ask questions in class, but often come to them with questions after
the lesson is over. Not the formulation of a question is blocked, only its expression, its coming out into the open. In classrooms the social-normative
obstacles
to questioning are very high; teacher and textbook questioning is the norm.
The expression of questions can also be blocked by personal factors such as
achievement motivation and self esteem (e.g., Nadler 1983; Newman 1992; Shell
& Eisenberg 1992). For example, it is assumed that a persons self-esteem affects
that persons perception of the benefits and costs attached to questioning (Shell
& Eisenberg 1992). In observations and experiments with fifth-graders, my students and I have found some effects of self-esteem on questioning that support
the consistency view. That is, high self-esteem students seem particularly sensitive to the costs of asking questions and therefore refrain from expressing them
(Evers & Westgeest-DeGraaf
1989; Van der Meij, Baarends, & Leijh 1988). It
should be noted, however, that we have also conducted a number of studies in
which no effects of self-esteem were found (Schouten & Zwijnenburg 1987; Van
der Meij, Meer, & Ionte 1989; Van der Meij 1989, 1990a, 1990b). In all, these
studies support the idea of a complex interaction between this personal factor
and other factors such as the consequences to self, the amount of control by the
students, and the stage of questioning studied.
There may, for example, be an interesting connection between what happens

after perplexity and a students volition (cf. Corno 1993). Corno suggests that,
whereas motivation plays an important role in perplexity, volition becomes more
important after perplexity, where it may help students manage and implement
goals and actions that lead to the development of a question. Among others,
volition may be vitally important for contingent queries, helping students fend
off distractions from their search strategies.
Occasionally, a student may decide to frame the question differently or to pose
another question for social reasons. For example, the questioner may begin with
a foot-in-the door question in order to introduce the real question. Students may,
for example, carefully construct a persuasive appeal, or ask a simple May I ask
you something ? One could speculate that this explains why, even during seatwork, a students initial utterance in contacting their teacher is often an open
question such as I dont know this and Can you help me? It is because
students follow a code of politesse to moderate their chances of getting a negative response; they know they must persuade the other to respond favorably (cf.
Dillon 1988a, 1990; Nelson-LeGall
1985). In order to find out whether students
ask these open questions because of social factors, or because they lack the skills
to formulate closed questions, it will be necessary to manipulate the predisposition to cooperate. When cooperation is made a non-issue, open questions probably signal lack of skill.
Finally, a student may also frame the question differently for communicative
reasons, to accommodate the respondent. Questioners (and respondents) must
be concerned with creating a common ground (Gibbs, Mueller, & Cox 1988). For
example, asking whether ones brother can be considered stout may reflect a
wonderful typing of stoutness, but it is incomprehensible
if the respondent does
not share some knowledge about the questioners brother.

STAGE 3: ANSWERING
Answering consists of a search for information, the finding of an answer, and
its processing. Clearly, there are many ways of obtaining an answer. A questioner may find an answer through direct retrieval in memory, or by conducting
a plausibility analysis leading to an inferred answer (for a detailed description of
such processes, see Reder 1987). Most of the research on student questioning
does not deal with these internal processes, however, but concentrates on the
questions asked of other sources, personal or non-personal.
Two interesting lines of research on the study of non-personal help sources
will be mentioned here. The first is the recent research falling under the rubric of
search behavior. The second is the work of Scardamalia and Bereiter on a
Computer-Supported
Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE). Each of these
approaches is described below.
Research on search behavior focuses on the strategic inquiry behavior of students who wish to locate specific information in a book or computer (e.g.,
Byrnes & Guthrie 1992; Dreher 1993; Dreher & Brown 1993; Dreher & Guthrie
1990; Guthrie & Dreher 1990; Yussen, Stright, & Payne 1993). This research
shows how students find (and often dont find) their way through accessing aids

Student Questioning: A Componential Analysis

151

such as indexes, tables of content, glossaries, and headings to the right place in
the body text.
Finding the correct location appears to be especially difficult when the right
information is to be found in different places of a document. For example, in one
study it was found that only about fifty percent of the high school students
succeeded in finding an answer to a question requiring the integration of information from three different locations (Dreher & Guthrie 1990). In general, the
studies show that students search strategies are positively affected when the
students know the architecture of the system (e.g., book or database) or when
they possess some knowledge of the topic for which they search information.
Recently, the goal formation component in this search behavior (i.e., the formulation problem) has become a topic of research (Dreher & Brown 1993).
The research of Scardamalia and Bereiter on CSILE has an even broader perspective as it focuses on the design of an environment in which students are
stimulated to pursue finding an answer to their own questions. The main idea in
CSILE is to move away from an attention to tasks and activities towards
knowledge-building,
to making the students responsible agents in learning (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1992; Scardamalia & Bereiter 1991, 1992, 1993).
Among others, the authors suggest making answering the shared responsibility of all the people in the classroom. In one CSILE classroom answering has
thus become a collaborative effort to which many students and the teacher
contribute. This is made technically possible through the communal nature of
the database, joint plannings, bulletin board and mail facilities, but the core
issue is, of course, the adoption of a collaborative knowledge-building
philosophy (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1992, 1993).
In general, when questions are posed to other people there is a fair chance that
no answer is given because the very least people do is give an answer. Most
replies are non-answers,
more or less responsive noises following a question
(Belnap & Steel 1976; cf. Harrah 1984). Instead of speaking of answers and
answering, Dillon (1990) therefore prefers to address the sentence part as response, and the act as responding.
When and how answers should be given is an issue that has been treated in
detail in philosophy and by computer scientists (e.g., Graesser, Byrne, & Behrens 1992; Harrah 1984; Lehnert 1978; Pilkington 1992). Only some of the general
issues involved will be discussed. Special attention will be given to answering
student questions because, compared to the general case, additional, and even
completely different considerations are at stake. Among others, a distinction is
called for between responses that promote independence
and responses that
promote dependency (Shell & Eisenberg 1992; cf. Dillon 1988a, 1988b).

Answer. A cooperative

respondent replies with a response that is relevant, informative, comprehensible,

and true (Grice 1975). What counts as an answer can be
determined only by the questioner, however. Only the questioner can decide
whether the question has been answered. In addition, it should also result in
what Dillon calls learning. The student must do something with the response.
Among others, this means that one must go beyond registering the mere

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reception of a response as the end state of an inquiry (cf. Nelson-LeGall

1981;
Nelson-LeGall
& Glor-Scheib 1985; Newman 1992). To my knowledge there are
no studies that have looked deeply into the matter of answerhood in relation to
student questioning in the classroom. Conducting such research would probably require an ethnographic approach. Individual students should be followed
when they (are about to) ask questions, their questions must be recorded, and so
should their teachers responses. Good responses (i.e., answers) could then be
operationalized
by looking at whether the questioner is able to solve similar
problems afterwards. Such research might show the success rate of interactions
between students and teachers and the factors that affect such successes.
The processing of a response to ones question can be as problematic as that of
raising and posing questions in the first place; students processing of responses
is often inadequate (Van der Meij 199Ob; Van der Meij & Dillon in press). For
example, when fifth-graders began asking questions to find the causes of a car
accident they would often start with a higher-order question like Did the driver
cause the accident? In theory, this is a strategic question because a Yes or a
No response enables the exclusion of a large number of alternatives. In practice, however, many students did not benefit from asking such a question because, after a No, they would frequently ask another, lower-level question
questions bearing on the same type of cause (e.g., Was the driver not careful?
Van der Meij 1986). Apparently they found the processing of responses so difficult, that even for this clear question and response they failed. Why do students
fail to process the responses to their own questions?
From the descriptions given earlier, it should be clear that the causes can be
conceptual, social, or motivational and that they may lie in the first, second, or
third stage of questioning. For example, it is possible that the student does not
fully grasp the implications of the question. In other words, the student may not
really know how good or strategic hisor her question really is. Its qualities may
dawn on the student only after the reception of the response. Another explanation would be that the response contains unexpected information, continuing
the students perplexity. This might show up in a follow-up question signalling
disbelief (e.g., Is it truly not . . _ ?). Of course, it is also always possible that
the questioner has not even heard the response, or that he or she is not truIy
interested in getting an answer. Another explanation altogether is that the student does find the response inadequate but does not dare to admit so, or finds it
improper to ask another question. In short, response processing can be deficient
for a variety of reasons argued for in the componential
model (cf. Chinn &
Brewer 1993).
In experimental research on student questioning the notion of instrumentality
has been introduced as a way to indicate how well students process responses
(Van der Meij 1990a, 1990b). Instrumentality
is a rubric for questioning that can
be helpful or harmful. When a response helps the student find the correct
answer to a problem it is called helpful. In contrast, harmfulness
signals a
negative effect of questioning. It shows a shift from a correct conception into an
incorrect one. A simple example can perhaps best explain these two aspects of

Student Questioning: A Componential Analysis

153

instrumentality.
Suppose that two students are asked about the meaning of
the word deliberation. Student A wrongly believes the word means freedom;
student B rightly believes that it means reflection. Both students ask one or
more questions. When student A then changes his or her answer into reflection, questioning is defined as helpful; when student B changes his or her
answer, questioning is considered to have been harmful.
It is difficult to measure instrumentality,
even in experiments, because of all
the controls that must be brought in. For example, it is important to ascertain
that failures cannot be blamed on the respondent. The respondent must understand the question, he or she should know the referent(s) of the question. This
problem can be solved by presenting students with a set of alternatives, of which
one is the correct answer. This answer sets helps create a common ground
between questioner and respondent in which the referent(s) of the question can
be traced with reasonable accuracy. To know whether questioning is helpful or
harmful one should, of course, also find out whether the student already knows
the answer. For this, tentative or provisional answers can be requested before
questioning.
They indicate the students best guess. If, furthermore,
the researcher is interested only in response processing and not in the combination of
questions and answers, it will be necessary to control for the qualities of the
questions that are posed. By using a selection procedure such control is possible
and the outcomes can truly be ascribed to better response processing. Of course,
it will also be necessary to correct for chance to get a fair estimate of the instrumentality of student questions.
In general, research has indicated that instrumentality is positively affected by
the students verbal ability. Students with high verbal abilities process responses
better. That is, their questioning tends to be more helpful and less harmful (Van
der Meij 1990a, 1990b).

Answering. With the possible exception

of Dillons work, little is known about

answering student questions. Answering these questions is a different matter
than responding to a question per se, because the respondent (i.e., teacher)
should also take pedagogical issues into consideration (e.g., Dillon 1986a, 1986b,
1988a, 1988b, 1991). Among others the teacher might want to respond so that the
students inquiry is sustained and take the possibility of stimulating independence into consideration. How, then, should student questions be answered, and
how well are they being answered?
According to Dillon (1988a 1991), the last thing to do is to answer the question.
Teachers, he suggests, should sustain the asking, even if the question concerns
1066 and all that (Dillon 1988a, p. 30). To sustain the asking Dillon advances five
general ways: (1) reinforce and reward the experience of perplexity and expression of inquiry, (2) help the student and classmates to devise a method to
address the question, (3) find out the question that the student has in mind to
ask, (4) examine together the grounds of the question, and (5) appreciate the
students state of knowledge revealed by the question. Only at a later time may
the teacher find it appropriate to answer the question. These suggestions of

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Dillon differ slightly from those of Scardamalia and Bereiter (1992, 1993) for
CSILE, but the main idea is the same. Teachers should create an environment
that stimulates inquiry and knowledge building (cf. Van Zee & Minstrel1 1991,
1993).
The guidelines for responding to student questions in experimental studies do
not stem from such a pedagogical perspective (and often rightly so). To my
knowledge, only Flammer and his colleagues have developed a detailed scenario
for giving the right responses (see Flammer, Kaiser, & Luthi 1981; cf Graesser,
Byrne & Behrens 1992). According to Flammer, respondents require knowledge
about the following factors. First, they need domain or task-specific knowledge.
Second, they must know how to classify the questions. Third, they must have a
set of principles for selecting the right response.
In his experiments,
especially in the later ones, Flammer worked hard to
standardize these factors. So he began drawing a detailed chart of the experimental task (i.e., preparing a mousse-au-chocolat)
and presented this chart to
the respondents
who then all shared the same domain knowledge. Next he
categorized the domain into a number of classes (e.g., goals, actions, criteria for
and instruments).
For each class he then specified the
success, ingredients,
kinds of questions into types (e.g., yes/no, global/specific, one or more steps)
and coupled each to a specific response rule. For example, if a subject asked a
question like What do I use for mixing? all respondents would classify the
question as one about instruments
and type it as global. Following their response rules they would then answer with a rod. Interestingly,
Flammer
(1986) later argued that he found himself tangled in issues concerning question
answering rather than in question asking in which he was interested.

CONCLUSION
Questioning in school has been equated with teacher or textbook questioning.
One of the arguments given in support of these practices is that it serves as a
model, that students will imitate these questions, and that it helps them to
further develop their questioning skills. To some degree this hypothesis has
been validated in research. But, unfortunately, teachers and textbooks often ask
simple fact questions. Only rarely do they ask questions that they are really
interested in. And so, by consequence (?), do students in school.
How can this condition be improved? For some, the answer lies in improving
the questioning of teachers and textbooks, in raising the level of their questions.
This will surely improve student questioning, but there are at least two reasons
why this may not help enough. One, it does not give students enough chances
to ask questions. When the teacher or textbook asks there is no room for student
questions. Two, it is doubtful whether teachers or textbooks can act as substitute
questioners.
That is, whether they can ask information-seeking
questions that
are (according to the teacher they should be) of interest to students. The questions of fellow students are better candidates, but they too cannot substitute

Student Questioning: A Component/al Analysis

155

because what perplexes is stately

bound to the questioner, to his or her
knowledge, interests, beliefs and so on (cf. Ross & Balzer 1975; Ross & Killey
1977).
More fundamentally, one might ask how some questions come to be appropriated by students. How is it possible that students adopt questions that do not
originate with themselves? Is it merely a signal that students learn how to play
the academic game, a game that resolves around teacher questions and student
answers? Or, more optimistically, do students adopt those questions and questioning techniques that have a clear value to them? For example, students may
adopt a strategy of asking metacognitive questions because they find it a valuable technique for regulating their learning.3
For these learned questioning strategies it is important to consider their stability. For example, it is important to know whether these techniques are maintained over a long period of time and if they are maintained after supporting
conditions are removed. In short, the topic of student appropriation of questions
is an important topic for research on student questioning in which some pertinent topics are yet to be addressed.
An alternative point of view altogether would be to start from the students
own questions, that is, to give students the opportuni~
to work on their own
questions for some time during the day, say half an hour to an hour. Would this
help students ask more and better questions? The research of Bereiter and Scardamalia suggests that it does when certain conditions are fulfilled. For example,
it will be necessary to provide for public and private displays of their work in
progress, for access and interchange of texts, notes, source materials and so on.
In addition, there should be time for reflection and refinement (Scardamalia &
Bereiter 1993).
Under the right conditions, students ask questions that have the potential to
lead to significant advances in understanding
(Bereiter & Scardamalia 1992,
p. 232). They show themselves capable of conducting a progressive inquiry in
ways that are similar to those of scientists (cf. Chinn & Brewer 1993). What this
research has hardly detailed yet is how students questioning skills develop.
When student questioning is going to be given a bigger role in education, it will
be helpful to understand better the processes of questioning.
The present article has tried to accomplish just that. Among others, it has been
emphasized that favorable social conditions are important for student questioning. It has also been emphasized that certain personal factors are vital. Questioning often is a very personal affair. It is intimately bound to a students prior
knowledge and skills, and to his or her motivation and volition. Further research
on these social and personal factors in questioning may yield fundamental insights for redesigning their learning environments,
helping students cope better
with the information overflow in school and at home.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The author wishes to thank the reviewers F.N. Dempster,

P.H. Winne and, especially, T.M. McDevitt for detailed comments on the first draft of this
article. Special thanks go to J.T. Dillon for comments on a first draft and for continued
support and stimulation.

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VOLUME 6, NUMBER

2, 1994

NOTES
1. Some authors (and research) suggest that adjunct and teacher questions positively affect student questions; others argue that their effect on student questioning is
minimal and can never substitute for the students own, spontaneous questions. By way
of argument for the latter position one might point out that it seems strange that someone
should have to teach students to start questions with who, where, why etc. when
children as young as 4 years of age have been observed to ask an average of 26 questions
per hour (Tizard & Hughes 1984). At the least, this suggests that the context in which
children are being urged to ask questions is not one that activates their full complement of
cognitive resources (cf. Scardamalia & Bereiter 1992). By way of counter-argument
one
could also argue that students still need to learn how to ask questions that support
learning. For example, they can learn how to improve their study strategies by elaborative
interrogations.
That is, by asking more questions such as What do I know about this
word?, How can I find out?, Is this the right approach?, or Why does this make
sense? (e.g., Pressley & Forrest-Pressley 1985; Woloshyn, Pressley, & Schneider 1992).
2. Some of these descriptions and most of the research issues that are linked to this
model, stem from the present author. They are not necessarily implied by Dillons original
model.
3. Scardamalia and Bereiters conception of collaborative answering also assumes
an adoption of questions.

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