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Types of Questions

This document outlines 5 levels of questions from least to most complex: 1. Factual questions have right/wrong answers based on basic facts. 2. Convergent questions have a limited range of acceptable answers and require simple inferences. 3. Divergent questions have many possible answers arrived through conjecture and imagination. 4. Evaluative questions require sophisticated cognitive/emotional judgment and comparing perspectives. 5. Combination questions blend elements of the other levels.

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lalaine reginaldo
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60 views

Types of Questions

This document outlines 5 levels of questions from least to most complex: 1. Factual questions have right/wrong answers based on basic facts. 2. Convergent questions have a limited range of acceptable answers and require simple inferences. 3. Divergent questions have many possible answers arrived through conjecture and imagination. 4. Evaluative questions require sophisticated cognitive/emotional judgment and comparing perspectives. 5. Combination questions blend elements of the other levels.

Uploaded by

lalaine reginaldo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

Factual – Soliciting reasonably simple, straight forward answers based on obvious facts
or awareness. These are usually at the lowest level of cognitive (thinking) or affective
(feeling) processes and answers are frequently either right or wrong.

Example: Name the Shakespeare play about the Prince of Denmark?

2. Convergent – Answers to these types of questions are usually within a very finite range
of acceptable accuracy. These may be at several different levels of cognition —
comprehension, application, analysis, or ones where the answerer makes inferences or
conjectures based on personal awareness, or on material read, presented or known. While
these types of questions are valuable in exercising mid-level cognitive thinking skills, it is
quite easy to expand students’ cognitive processes even higher by adding another layer to
these questions whereby teachers ask students to justify their answers in light of the
evidence offered or the inferences made.

Example: On reflecting over the entirety of the play Hamlet, what


were the main reasons why Ophelia went mad? (This is not specifically stated in one direct
statement in the text of Hamlet. Here the reader must make simple inferences as to why
she committed suicide.)

3. Divergent – These questions allow students to explore different avenues and create
many different variations and alternative answers or scenarios. Correctness may be based
on logical projections, may be contextual, or arrived at through basic knowledge, conjecture,
inference, projection, creation, intuition, or imagination. These types of questions often
require students to analyze, evaluate, or synthesize a knowledge base and then project or
predict different outcomes. Answering these types of questions may be aided by higher
levels of affective thinking as well — such as valuing, organization, or characterization.
Responses to these types of questions generally fall into a wide array of acceptability. Often
correctness is determined subjectively based on the possibility or probability of the
proposed answer. The intent of these types of questions is to stimulate imaginative,
creative, or inventive thought, or investigate “cause and effect” relationships.

Example: In the love relationship of Hamlet and Ophelia, what might have happened to
their relationship and their lives if Hamlet had not been so obsessed with the revenge of his
father’s death?
4. Evaluative – These types of questions usually require sophisticated levels of cognitive
and/or emotional (affective) judgment. In attempting to answer these types of questions,
students may be combining multiple cognitive and/or affective processes or levels,
frequently in comparative frameworks. Often an answer is analyzed at multiple levels and
from different perspectives before the answerer arrives at newly synthesized information or
conclusions.

Examples:

a. How are the deaths of Ophelia and Juliet the same and yet different? (Compare and
contrast.)

b. What are the similarities and differences between Roman gladiatorial games and modern
football?

c. Why and how might the concept of Piagetian schema be related to the concepts
presented in Jungian personality theory, and why might this be important to consider in
teaching and learning?

5. Combinations – These are questions that blend any combination of the above.

You can easily monitor what types of questions you are asking your students through
simple tallies and examining degrees of difficulty. Or, if your students are older, then ask
them to monitor the types of questions you ask, allowing them to identify the types. For
those of you who might be a bit more collaborative or adventurous in your teaching and
want to give students some ownership in their educational processes, challenge them to
create course related questions to ask one another. In my many years of teaching I was
always pleasantly surprised at what students came up with.

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