Critical thinking is a very important aspect in every individual. Questioning techniques were designed to develop our cognitive skill. Questions are as good as the responses provided so it is better to sharpen our questioning skills. Our level of thinking is not so much sharpened when the questions asked are more on factual recall or stock knowledge. We get to hone our cognitive aspect through higher level questions that require more than basic knowledge-level responses.
Questions must be constructed in a way that triggers evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of facts and information. Higher level cognitive questions usually start with words as “Explain,” “Describe,” “Compare,” “Why,” and “How.”
Levels of Questions
A very good practice for students in developing their thinking skills and increasing comprehension is to ask effective questions. Instead of asking them lower-level questions most of the time, it is important to balance literal or knowledge-based questions with higher level questions so the students will learn to think at a higher level of thinking as well.
Teacher may use the literal and inferential questioning technique which covers the increasing levels of questions to be asked. Basically, there are three phases of questions in this tactic: literal, inferential, and applied levels. The literal level is the most commonly used questioning tactic in the classroom. These questions have answers from the questions itself. You may be asked to describe, name, identify, note, define, recite, and observe.
The inferential level would require students to interpret and understand beyond the facts and concepts presented. The answers are implicit and answers are in between the text. So, the students will have to analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, infer, and sequence.
The third phase of questions is the applied level which is more experience-based. Students are taught to think beyond factual knowledge. As a higher level of questioning, it will make the students evaluate, imagine, predict, speculate, judge, and hypothesize.
Bloom Taxonomy & Socratic Questioning
These are two effective questioning techniques that have been very helpful to the teachers in their interaction with their students. Reciprocally, students learn how to develop their manner of questioning and enhance level of thinking with these questioning tactics.
Bloom’s taxonomy is a good technique to promote not just literal but critical thinking as well. This concept is about a progressive level of questioning that also increases the level of thinking of a person.
Starting from the knowledge-based level, it then progresses to comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluative levels. Since knowledge level questions only assess a person’s factual knowledge, asking the higher levels will require us to be creative in our manner of thinking and even discover new learning.
Socratic questioning is another technique that involves deep probing and understanding of the meaning and logic of a certain issue or position. This questioning tactic is aimed at clarifying. There are no correct or wrong responses supplied in the Socratic method since this is based on a person’s experiences.
When using a certain questioning technique, always give a wait time to the person being asked to allow the individual to think critically and entertain thoughts. Offering feedback is also helpful. If there is a need to ask “Why”, it would probably help the person expound more and think at a deeper level.
The Importance of Asking Higher Level Questions
Why are we encouraged to ask higher level thinking questions? For one, these types of questions belong to the evaluative level which enhances critical thinking apart from literal thinking. Also, a habitual orientation to questions at higher levels helps develop an individual’s positive self-concept. It makes a person realize that their ideas are important and can contribute.
A deeper level of comprehension is enhanced since individuals are able to relate to personal background experiences of a situation. Repeating factual information is good but being asked to comprehend and infer from those facts will make us understand the essence of an issue or a situation.
It is also important to note that for all questions, not all answers can be found on the page or based on factual recall. Creativity in thinking is needed to promote new ideas and concepts. A person becomes better prepared to face challenging situations at a more mature level of thinking with the exposure to inferential and applied level of questions.