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Questioning Learning
a b
Debra Myhill & Frances Dunkin
a
School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, UK
b
Field Place First School, Worthing, Sussex, UK
Published online: 22 Dec 2008.

To cite this article: Debra Myhill & Frances Dunkin (2005) Questioning Learning, Language and Education, 19:5, 415-427,
DOI: 10.1080/09500780508668694

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Questioning Learning
Debra Myhill
School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, UK
Frances Dunkin
Headteacher, Field Place First School, Worthing, Sussex, UK

This paper draws on observation data from 54 teaching episodes in Year 2 and Year 6
whole-class teaching. It describes the findings of the analysis and illustrates how
‘interactive’, whole-class teaching is characterised by questions requiring predeter-
mined answers. Speculative questions, which invite opinions, hypotheses and imagin-
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ings, or process questions, which invite children to articulate their understanding

occupy little of the classroom talk arena. Despite national initiatives to develop greater
use of whole-class teaching with higher levels of interactivity, teachers use questioning
to maintain control and to support their teaching, rather than pupil learning. The paper
raises important issues about the nature of interactivity in whole-class teaching and
about the role questions play in supporting and extending pupils’ learning experi-
ences.

Keywords: teacher questioning, interactive teaching, higher order thinking

Introduction
The primacy of talk in the classroom context has long been recognised as
central to learning, spanning the centuries, from classical notions of Socratic
dialogue, through to Victorian schoolrooms typified by pupil recitation and
didactic teacher instruction, to more recent times which have witnessed the
evolution of different perspectives on classroom talk. Theoretical conceptual
frameworks which articulate the role of talk in supporting learning have often
emphasised differing facets of talk in the classroom, such as the need to acknowl-
edge the influence of the home or street language (Bernstein, 1971; Tough, 1977;
Wells, 1986), the value of group talk in generating constructive contexts for learn-
ing (Alexander, 2002; Barnes et al., 1986), or psychological explorations of the
interrelationship between talk and thought (Vygotsky, 1986). Common to much
of this research of the late 20th century is an examination of the power relation-
ships constructed and maintained in the classroom through the medium of talk,
and the way in which these relationships impact upon learning.
Central to many of these descriptions of the pattern of classroom discourse is a
fundamental asymmetry of power (Anderson & Hilton, 1997; Edwards & West-
gate, 1994; Summers, 1991) and potentially ‘conflicting agendas of teachers and
pupils’ (Summers 1991). Within this environment, what is learned and what is
valued is controlled and confined by the teacher, whose educational role
Edwards and Mercer (1987) describe as the ‘induction of children into the academic
world of knowledge and discourse inhabited by the teacher’; in other words, ‘cognitive
socialisation through discourse’. The pattern of classroom discourse thus described
is essentially transmissive, where the teacher endeavours to pass on to pupils the

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LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 19, No. 5, 2005

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416 Language and Education

body of knowledge which he or she possesses, but is as yet unpossessed by

pupils. Although the terms ‘discussion’ or ‘interaction’ are frequently used to
describe the oral exchanges between pupils and teachers, these interactions are
commonly devoid of the discourse characteristics one would normally associate
with discussion. Most apparent is the linguistic dominance (Barnes et al., 1986;
Hodge, 1981) of the teacher who controls and manipulates the classroom
discourse to achieve his or her purposes. This is not simply in the managerial role
of organising, turntaking and maintaining order but also in the qualitative role of
determining which contributions are to be valued (Edwards & Westgate, 1994).
Overlaying this dominance is the way teachers use questions in the class-
room – unlike most contexts found outside the classroom (with the exception
perhaps of a law court), the teacher asks questions to which he or she already
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knows the answers. And pupils who are quick to develop implicit recognition of
the rules of classroom discourse learn that usually only one answer or a limited
range of answers is acceptable. One consequence of this is that episodes suppos-
edly planned to encourage talk between teacher and pupil results in pupils utter-
ing only ‘elliptical sentence fragments’ (Wells, 1986) as they play a guessing game of
what is in the teacher’s head. The process of questioning acts to align children’s
thinking with the teachers: it is less a process of educational enquiry, more a
process of ‘following the teacher’s script’ (Francis, 2002). Describing teachers’ ques-
tioning techniques while sharing a story with primary children, Kirby (1996)
argues that it is questioning which constructs the adult–child relationship and
teaches children that their own knowledge is ‘subordinate to the text and the
teacher’.
Barnes’ (1986) analysis of teachers’ questions famously drew attention to the
disproportionate number of ‘closed’ questions, those requiring a predetermined
answer, which were asked by teachers. By contrast, ‘open’ questions inviting
exploratory, tentative responses were rare. The implication drawn from Barnes’
work is that teachers use questions to narrow and limit thinking to factual recall,
rather than using questions to develop learning and understanding. The reliance
upon factual or closed questions appears to be an endemic feature of teachers’
talk repertoire, recorded in several older studies prior to Barnes’ work (such as
Gall, 1970). More recently, Alexander’s (1992) study reaffirmed this: the study
found that although questions were a significant feature in teachers’ pedagogi-
cal armoury, teachers rarely exploited ‘the full potential of questioning as a teach-
ing strategy’. Instead, questions were often closed, as Barnes had suggested,
conversational, or lacking intellectual challenge. The ORACLE project, initially
conducted in 1976 and replicated in 1996 also reported the dominance of factual
and closed questions in both studies. They conclude that, despite curriculum
changes, the underlying pattern of discourse remains one where ‘teachers talk
and pupils sit and listen’ (Galton et al., 1999), and that the nature of response
demanded by most questions merely serves to reify this pattern of knowledge
control by teachers. Summarising the findings of Wood and Wood (1988),
Watts et al. (1997) maintain that ‘teacher control of questioning constantly encour-
ages student passivity’.
The relationship between the type of question and the type of response is
significant. Wood (1988) found that the heavy use of very specific, closed ques-
tions tended ‘to generate relatively silent children and to inhibit any discussion between

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Questioning Learning 417

them’. Similarly, Wragg (2001) found that ‘naming’ questions, which required a
single answer, were the least probing type of question. The predominance of
factual questions in questioning sequences inevitably limits the opportunity for
asking higher order or multi-propositional questions and thus it is not surprising
that ‘questions which required the children to extend their thinking or which sought to
clarify the text meaning’ are ‘ rare.’ (Kirby, 1996).
Moreover, pupils rarely ask questions themselves, particularly questions
which might help them to clarify or elaborate upon their understanding of a
given concept. Studies have repeatedly highlighted the paucity of questions
asked by pupils (Dillon, 1988; Galton et al., 1999; Wragg & Brown, 2001). Dillon
argued that the pattern of classroom discourse, framed by the Initiation-Feed-
back-Response sequence, rarely gave pupils an opportunity ‘to fit a question into
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the ongoing cycle’ (Dillon, 1988). Alexander’s Leeds study found, as Dillon had,
that pupils had few opportunities to ask questions, and if they did so, these were
often ‘blocked or marginalised’ (Alexander, 1992). Teachers’ tendency to control
classroom interaction so that it operates within their own ‘frame of reference’
(Mroz et al., 2000) has the consequence of limiting pupils’ enquiries ‘resulting in a
very low level of pupil questions’ (Mroz et al., 2002: 382).
Within the educational context of the UK, these research findings are counter-
pointed by policy initiatives in both the primary and secondary phases which
have, in principle at least, altered accepted teaching methods and interaction
patterns. The National Literacy Strategy (NLS) (DfEE, 1998) and the National
Numeracy Strategy (NMS) (DfEE, 1999) for the primary sector and their second-
ary counterpart, the Framework for Key Stage 3, advocate more whole-class
teaching than had been the norm. At the heart of this recommendation is the prin-
ciple of quality interaction: the primary Literacy Strategy asserts that successful
teaching is ‘characterised by high quality oral work’ and that it is interactive where
‘pupils’ contributions are encouraged, expected and extended’ (DfEE, 1998). More
recently, significant research by Black and Wiliam (1998) and by Alexander
(2004) have attempted to describe more precisely the nature of high quality oral
work. Black and Wiliam have highlighted the importance of opportunities for
talk and the importance of effective teacher questioning in supporting formative
assessment and particularly in supporting better pupil understanding of their
own learning. Likewise, Alexander (2004) argues for a rejection of the typical
question-answer-tell routines which characterise so many teacher–pupil interac-
tions. His advocacy of dialogic teaching, with its emphasis on reciprocal,
supportive and cumulative classroom interactions, redirects pedagogical think-
ing away from teacher-question-pupil answer patterns of discourse to a more
shared and purposeful co-construction of knowledge and understanding. In the
light of both the historical research findings about teacher questioning, and these
more recent developments, this paper reports on a study which has investigated,
as part of its research brief, the nature of teachers’ questions in interactive,
whole-class teaching.

The Study
The research study described here, funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council, set out to explore the way in which teacher–pupil interactions

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418 Language and Education

permit the development of ‘principled understanding’ (Edwards & Mercer, 1987).

The interface between ‘interactive’ and ‘transmissive’ is a fine one: it is all too
easy to plan interactive episodes which become transmissive in delivery.
Through analysing episodes of whole-class teaching, through teacher reflection,
and through interviews with pupils, the study investigated how teachers,
through their oral interactions, take account of and build on pupils’ prior knowl-
edge and experiences to help develop understanding of concepts being taught.
The sample comprised two cohorts, drawn from Year 2 (aged 6 to 7) in three
first schools and Year 6 (aged 10 to 11) in three middle/primary schools. The
schools involved in the research all belonged to one schools’ academic pyramid
in the south of England. Eighteen whole-class teaching episodes of approxi-
mately a quarter of an hour were videorecorded, capturing teaching in the NLS,
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the NMS, and a third curriculum area. Thus, a total of 54 teaching episodes were
recorded. The episodes were recorded in sequences of three to allow compari-
sons and analysis of how the teacher built and developed understanding
(mirroring Edwards and Mercer’s (1987) methodology) across three consecutive
teaching inputs. In practice, with literacy and numeracy, this was usually three
consecutive days, whereas in other curriculum areas the three episodes some-
times spanned a week. Each teacher involved in the study completed a post hoc
reflection upon his or her use of talk, using the video and a series of prompts as
stimulated recall.
One sub-strand of the research was to explore the way questions are used to
develop learning. Barnes’ distinction between open and closed questions is
widely used, but there are pitfalls in such a polarised distinction. Firstly, live
classroom questions are not always easy to classify so broadly: Barnes himself
counts a question about the features of a limerick as an open question when
clearly there are only a limited number of possible acceptable answers. Secondly,
and more importantly, they take no account of context and purpose. Why a
teacher is choosing to use a closed or an open question is a fundamental consider-
ation. Closed questions may be judiciously used to recap or consolidate informa-
tion already covered; to establish a foundation upon which to ask more tentative,
exploratory open questions; to establish what pupils already know and so on.
Using the video data and a grounded theory approach, the project analysed the
type and purpose of teachers’ questions and how questions were used to move
pupils from what they already know to new understandings.

The Process of Deriving Categories from the Data

The video records of each teaching sequence of three were analysed using a
grounded theory approach whereby the final coding categories were derived
from an iterative analysis of the data. As the videos were watched, codes were
determined that described both the form and the function of teachers’ talk.
Initially, there was no predetermined attempt to define each utterance as having
a form and a function: this emerged in the process of analysis as it became evident
that an utterance with a particular form could be used within a discourse
sequence to serve different functions. Clarity about the forms and functions grew
as the researchers refined, confirmed and cross-validated the codes being used
and how each code described the data. The five researchers began by coding

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Questioning Learning 419

independently, the codes were refined and cross-validated throughout the

process, and then formally cross-validated when the first phase of analysis was
completed. Following this formal cross-validation, it was agreed that each utter-
ance would be coded both for form and for function and a phase of refining codes
in line with the validated codes began.
The utterances were divided into two groups: statements and questions.
While most utterances could easily be seen to fit into one of these categories, it
was clear that not all questions were inviting a response from the children: some-
times the teacher answered her own question, sometimes the teacher merely
posed a question with no clear expectation of a response, so while it had the form
of a question, it had the function of a statement. Conversely, some statements did
require the children to respond. Questions and statements were therefore
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defined, not in terms of their grammatical form, but in terms of the nature of
response given. So statements were defined as those utterances which invited no
spoken response from the pupils, and questions were defined as those utterances
which invited the pupils to make a spoken response. The final categories for the
form of questions are outlined in Table 1.
As has already been noted, the process of analysing and coding the data made
it apparent that simply categorising questions according to their form was not
fully capturing many of the subtle ways in which questions were used in
whole-class teaching. So, for example, the three factual questions cited in Table 1
(What is five plus five? Why do plants have flowers? What else could I use to measure
with?) were all directed towards predetermined answers in the contexts from
which they were drawn. However, they did not all function in the same way. The
numeracy question was straightforward factual elicitation, and the receipt of a

Table 1 The categorisation of the form of questions

Form Definition Example
Factual Questions which invited a What is five plus five?
predetermined answer Why do plants have flowers?
What else could I use to measure
with?
Speculative Questions which invited a Anyone got any ideas what that
response with no predetermined could mean?
answer, often opinions, Do you think zoos are a good
hypotheses, imaginings, ideas idea?
Anyone got any opinions about
those three children?
If I made the slope higher, what do
you think might happen then?
Process Questions which invited children How did you work that out?
to articulate their understanding How do you know that?
of learning processes/explain their
Can you explain why?
thinking
Procedural Questions which related to the Can you all see?
organisation and management of
the lesson

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420 Language and Education

Table 2 The categorisation of the function of questions

Function Definition
Class management Related to management of behaviour/tasks
Factual elicitation Asking for recall of fact/information
Cued elicitation Giving clues to answer
Building on content Gathering information about the topic/theme
Building on thinking Making children think about the ideas and concepts; this
moves ideas forward, unlike checking understanding
which looks back at ideas already covered
Recapping Recalling past lessons and work done in this lesson
Practising skills Inviting children to rehearse, repeat or practise a
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strategy or grasp of understanding

Checking prior Checking child’s knowledge and experience which
knowledge might be relevant to lesson
Developing vocabulary Testing or clarifying understanding of words
Checking understanding Querying understanding and checking grasp of
learning undertaken
Developing reflection Inviting children to think about how they are learning
and the strategies they are using

correct answer would not necessarily illumine whether the child had understood
the mathematical processes. The question about why plants have flowers was
from a science lesson looking at seeds and was leading explicitly towards the
answer that plants have flowers so that they can produce seeds for the next
generation of plants. However, the question was building on pupils’ thinking
about seeds and attempting to move children’s thinking forward. Finally, the
question about measurement tools was directed towards a limited set of possible
answers but the framing of the question was inviting children to think about and
reflect upon the strategies they were using to measure effectively. This aspect of
the data analysis was important in providing a more three-dimensional picture
of whole-class interaction.
The final categories for the function of questions are outlined in Table 2.

The Findings
This paper focuses upon the way teachers use questions in whole-class talk.
However, it is worth noting at this point that the number of statements used
exceeded the number of questions used at a ratio of approximately 2 : 1. In the
complete data set, there were 2852 statements compared with 1919 questions.
This pattern of teachers using more statements than questions was repeated in
both the Year 2 and Year 6 data sets. There were more significant differences in
the ratio of statements to questions in literacy and numeracy. In numeracy, the
ratio was more evenly balanced (658 statements to 626 questions), but in literacy
there were almost twice as many statements as questions (1358 statements to 795
questions). English et al. (2002) claim that ‘interactivity depends on the ratio of ques-
tions to statements’; in other words, the pattern of statements relative to questions
provides an indicator of whether the discourse pattern is dominantly telling or

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Questioning Learning 421

Table 3 The categorisation of questions across the whole data set

Questions Total Percentage

CheckingPriorknowledge

Checking understanding
Developing vocabulary

Developing reflection
Building on thinking
Building on content
Class management

Factual elicitation

Practising skills
Cued elicitation

Recapping
Procedural 102 17 5 4 5 6 0 0 0 8 0 147 8%
Factual 20 411 123 121 142 128 157 20 33 74 7 1236 64%
Speculative 0 21 4 54 154 5 14 26 9 17 3 307 16%
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Process 0 45 0 19 33 12 1 1 0 29 89 229 12%

Total 122 494 132 198 334 151 172 47 42 128 99 1919 100%
Percentage 6% 26% 7% 10% 17% 8% 9% 3% 2% 7% 5% 100%

asking. The data presented here suggest that telling, a transmissive model, is a
stronger feature of classroom discourse, particularly literacy, than asking or
answering, an interactive model.
However, a conceptualisation of interactivity as being based on the relative
predominance of questions to statements is a rather crude one. Although ques-
tions invite a response and are thus notionally interactive, the nature of questions
and how questions are used is of far more significance in attempting to describe
the quality of classroom interactions and their relationship to pupil learning.
Table 3 presents the analysis of the questions by both form and function.
The analysis indicates that by far the most common form of question is the
factual question and the most common function of questions is factual elicitation.
Only a minority of questions relate to higher-order thinking, such as speculative
and process questions. However, a significant percentage of questions did build
on thinking and did develop reflection on learning: taken together these two
functions almost equal those questions that call for factual elicitation.
The pattern of results for Year 2 and Year 6 is broadly similar to that for the
whole data set (see Table 4), and in most categories the Year 2 patterns are very
similar to the Year 6 patterns. Nonetheless, the data do suggest that there is a
cognitive difference in the nature of questioning in Year 6. Year 6 teachers ask
almost twice as many process questions as Year 2 teachers, and they ask more
questions which build on thinking or which require children to reflect on their
learning. By contrast, Year 2 teachers are more likely to ask questions that build
on prior knowledge: in fact, Year 6 teachers rarely ask such questions. There is no
logical explanation as to why Year 6 teachers should be apparently so reluctant to
build on children’s prior knowledge, since this should be equally important at
any stage of learning. It is possible that, by Year 6, curriculum priorities and
impending high-accountability Key Stage 2 tests cause teachers to focus more on
what they want children to know, than upon what they already know.
Analysis of the questions according to curriculum area reveals some broad
similarities across subject areas, but also some significant differences (see Table
5). Indeed, there are stronger patterns of variation between the three curriculum

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422 Language and Education

Table 4 The categorisation of questions in year 2 and year 6

Checking Prior knowledge

Questions Total Percentage

vocabulary

Checking understanding

Developing reflection
Building on thinking
Building on content
Class management
Factual elicitation

Practising skills
Cued elicitation

Developing
Recapping
Procedural
Year 2 76 8 5 2 4 3 0 0 0 1 0 99 8%
Year 6 26 9 0 2 1 3 0 0 0 7 0 48 7%
Factual
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Year 2 12 267 85 64 93 93 92 18 16 39 3 782 66%

Year 6 8 144 38 57 49 35 65 2 17 35 4 454 62%
Speculative
Year 2 0 21 4 37 73 3 11 26 9 17 3 204 17%
Year 6 0 0 0 17 81 2 3 0 0 0 0 103 14%

Process
Year 2 0 15 0 10 12 7 1 1 0 11 45 102 9%
Year 6 0 30 0 9 21 5 0 0 0 18 44 127 17%
Total
Year 2 88 311 94 113 182 106 104 45 25 68 51 1187 100%
Year 6 34 183 38 85 152 45 68 2 17 60 48 732 100%
Percentage
Year 2 7% 26% 8% 10% 15% 9% 9% 4% 2% 6% 4% 100%
Year 6 5% 25% 5% 12% 21% 6% 9% 0 2% 8% 7% 100%

areas than there are between the two year groups. The dominance of the use of
factual questions is constant across all three subject groupings, and the use of
procedural questions, related to managing the classroom is also very similar.
However, there is a marked difference in the pattern of speculative and
process questioning in numeracy, when compared with literacy and other curric-
ulum areas. There are significantly fewer speculative questions in numeracy,
and significantly more process questions: the pattern is an almost complete
reversal of that found in literacy and other curriculum subjects. Literacy and
‘other’ subjects use many more speculative questions than process questions, in
the case of literacy the ratio is more than 4 : 1 in favour of speculative questions,
while for ‘other’ subjects it is more than 2 : 1. In numeracy, this pattern is
reversed and the ratio is 4 : 1 in favour of process questions. This pattern is
reflected in the function of questions being used, so that while fewer questions in
numeracy build on thinking (12%) than is the case in literacy (23%), numeracy
stands out as the one subject in which questions develop reflection on learning.
After factual elicitation, the most common function of questions in numeracy is
to practise skills; in fact, almost all the examples of practising skills were from
numeracy lessons. There are no examples in numeracy of teachers using ques-
tions to check for prior knowledge. So a pattern emerges in numeracy of questions
which are less likely to build on thinking than is true for the other two subjects,

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Questioning Learning 423

Table 5 The categorisation of questions by curriculum area

Checking Prior knowledge

Questions Total Percentage

Checking understanding
Developing vocabulary

Developing reflection
Building on thinking
Building on content
Class management

Factual elicitation

Practising skills
Cued elicitation

Recapping
Procedural
Literacy 65 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 70 9%
Numeracy 23 8 4 2 3 4 0 0 0 6 0 50 8%
Other 14 6 1 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 27 5%
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Factual
Literacy 12 151 50 74 84 41 32 8 14 52 2 520 65%
Numeracy 6 136 34 10 30 30 122 0 12 9 5 394 63%
Other 2 124 39 37 28 57 3 12 7 13 0 322 65%

Speculative
Literacy 0 15 1 18 87 0 4 21 6 14 3 169 21%
Numeracy 0 0 0 6 26 2 2 0 0 0 0 36 6%
0 6 3 30 41 3 8 5 3 3 0 102 21%
Other
Process
Literacy 0 2 0 2 9 0 0 0 0 7 16 36 5%
Numeracy 0 26 0 6 18 4 1 0 0 19 72 146 23%
Other 0 17 0 11 6 8 0 1 0 3 1 47 9%

Total
Literacy 77 171 51 94 182 41 36 29 20 73 21 795 100%
Numeracy 29 170 38 24 77 40 125 0 12 34 77 626 100%
Other 16 153 43 80 75 70 11 18 10 21 1 498 100%

Percentage
Literacy 10% 22% 6% 12% 23% 5% 4% 4% 2% 9% 3% 100%
Numeracy 5% 27% 6% 4% 12% 6% 20% 0 2% 6% 12% 100%
Other 3% 31% 9% 16% 15% 14% 2% 4% 2% 4% 0 100%

but considerably more likely to develop reflection on learning, numeracy stands

out as the one subject in which questions develop reflection on learning.
Questions that build on thinking are more common in literacy than in the other
two subjects, but there are fewer process questions. Teachers are more likely to ask
questions that check for understanding in literacy than in the other subjects.
The raw frequencies suggest that teachers may talk more in literacy than in the
other two subjects – there is a higher proportion of questions (and statements) in
the 15-minute literacy episodes than in either numeracy or other curriculum
subjects. This implies a pattern of short responses from children. At the time of
the final data analysis for this study, English et al. (2002) reported their research
which found that in literacy the average length of a pupil utterance was only
three words. In order to compare this finding with our own data, we revisited a
sub-sample of our data and counted the length of pupil utterances, which had
not been in our original research design. Our own data confirmed English et al.’s

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424 Language and Education

finding of limited responses by children, as in our sample the average length of

utterance was only four words.

Discussion
If ‘the aim of pedagogical questions, as Socrates demonstrated, is to motivate,
sustain and direct the thought-processes of the pupil’ (Wood, 1988), then there is rela-
tively little evidence in this study to suggest that whole-class interactive teaching
is achieving this. The dominant forms of statements were informing and instruct-
ing, and the dominant form of questions was factual. This suggests a pattern of
teaching which is transmissive, with the teachers in this study imparting factual
information, and asking factual questions. The teachers appear to be the givers of
information, the children the receivers. Transcripts of these videoed lessons
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reveal that the dominant interaction pattern is teacher-child-teacher-child, and

only rarely is this pattern disrupted with teacher-child-child-child-teacher inter-
action patterns, for example. The child’s answer serves to end an interaction
pattern, and rarely to extend or initiate it. Thus, ‘interactive’ whole-class teaching
is heavily orchestrated by the teacher both in terms of opportunities for pupils to
contribute, and in terms of the nature of responses sought. Black and Wiliam
(1998) identify this pattern of questioning as wholly counter-productive to the
enterprise of learning:

So the teacher, by lowering the level of questions and by accepting answers

from a few, can keep the lesson going but is actually out of touch with the
understanding of most of the class – the question-answer dialogue
becomes a ritual, one in which all connive and thoughtful involvement
suffers. (Black and Wiliam, 1998: 8)

One feature the analysis highlights is the relatively low number of questions
related to higher-order thinking, those questions which ‘promote reflection, analy-
sis, self-examination and enquiry’ (Wood, 1988). Speculative questions, which
invite opinions, hypotheses and imaginings, or process questions, which invite
children to articulate their understanding, occupy little of the classroom talk
arena. This may be due to the prioritising of teaching (delivery and content) over
learning (understanding). There was some suggestion in the data that teachers
were aware that speculative or process questions potentially invite a higher level
of cognitive response, but they were not always confident in framing such ques-
tions, or in genuinely allowing a speculative response. Thus, there were exam-
ples of teachers’ questions which appeared speculative to the children but where
in fact the teacher had a set answer in mind. In one lesson, the teacher asked the
class, ‘What is spring?’ and was rewarded by a series of answers about flowers
blooming, leaves falling, temperature changes and so on. However, the question
was in fact a factual question and when none of the children’s answers matched
the intended response, the teacher closed the sequence with, ‘Well, spring is a
season’. Elsewhere, in a literacy lesson intended to explore children’s reactions
and responses to a poem, the teacher strongly cued pupil response in the form of
a pseudo-speculative question, ‘Is the poem just describing what it is like to go bare-
foot on the beach?’ It is also significant that an increase in speculative and process
questions would give more ‘air time’ to the learners as they tend to require

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Questioning Learning 425

longer, more sustained responses, whereas the pattern presented here by the
data is very much of teacher-dominated talk with short bursts of pupil response.
It is also worth considering whether the context of whole-class teaching is best
suited to the encouragement of genuinely open and higher-order questions: the
teacher needs to balance the need to manage the classroom behaviour and oral
responses of up to 30 children with the desire to encourage responses which by
definition may be slow, tentative, exploratory and not in line with the thinking of
others in the class.
The different patterns of interaction between numeracy and other curriculum
areas suggests there may be a subject-specific discourse for mathematical under-
standing, reflecting the subject’s concern with processes and functions, rather
than information and ideas. However, it may also reflect a recognition on teach-
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ers’ part that understanding how to tackle a mathematical problem is more

important than arriving at the correct answer, and that the pedagogical discourse
has to enable this kind of thinking. There is a direct relationship between this
discourse pattern and the recommendations of the National Numeracy Strategy.
A key part of the training for teachers in introducing the numeracy strategy was
the encouragement to create opportunities for children to practise skills, and to
invite children to ‘explain their methods and reasoning clearly’ (DfEE, 1999). Indeed,
the most recent review of the numeracy strategy reiterates the importance of
‘effective questioning to encourage pupils to explain their calculations’ (OFSTED,
2002).
Given the emphasis in the National Literacy Strategy upon explicit
metalinguistic understanding, it seems curious that there is relatively little
emphasis upon process questions and reflection upon learning in literacy.
Although the NLS clearly advocates whole-class teaching in which ‘pupils’ contri-
butions are encouraged, expected and extended’ (DfEE, 1998), the study described
here may indicate that teachers have embraced the pedagogic practices espoused
by the NLS, such as teacher modelling, and shared reading and writing, without
a corollary confidence in managing children’s talk effectively. The NLS emphasis
upon ‘well-paced’ teaching, with a ‘sense of urgency’ (DfEE, 1998) may also be
encouraging factual, closed questioning, because as Black and Wiliam (1998)
point out, ‘the only questions that can produce answers in such a short time are ques-
tions of fact’ and therefore, pace and factual questioning become synonymous.
Thus, activities such as modelling, shared writing and an emphasis upon pace
may unintentionally be increasing teacher talk in whole-class teaching at the
expense of pupil contributions. The significant difference in the amount of
teacher talk occurring between literacy and other curriculum areas investigated
in this study reflects a teaching pattern which makes high demands of children as
listeners. The high number of statements recorded which served a class manage-
ment function in literacy (see Table 5) may be due, in part, to the need to deal with
disruptions and inattentiveness precipitated by the listening demands.
This study, then, in which whole-class teaching is characterised by a high
percentage of factual questions could give a depressing picture of a content-
based curriculum reflecting a transmissive view of education. However, there
was some evidence that teachers were trying to engage the children and scaffold
their learning in a meaningful way. The coding of questions in terms of function
as well as form points to more subtle interplay in teachers’ use of questions.

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426 Language and Education

There were a significant number of factual questions which built on thinking,

built on content, checked prior knowledge, and developed reflection on learning:
taken together, these exceeded the proportion of questions that called for factual
elicitation. Moreover, there was some evidence that within the whole-class
episode teachers were structuring their talk in a series of discourse ‘moves’ to
scaffold the children’s learning. At the start of the whole-class teaching episode
there would frequently be a short burst of closed factual questions recalling
previous work, followed by questions checking children’s understanding in
which the teacher appeared to be establishing a base from which to develop
learning. Other teachers began a whole-class teaching episode with a focused,
but open question and then used the children’s answers to move the thinking
forward. In some cases, the teacher decided it would be simpler to tell the chil-
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dren a particular piece of information directly at the outset rather than playing a
guessing game where through a series of closed questions the children had to
ascertain what the lesson was about. These discourse moves seemed more overt
and more confidently handled at the initiation of a teaching episode: as the
episode of whole-class teaching progressed, the discourse moves were less
evident.
Thus, this study confirms the findings of other recent studies in similar
contexts, particularly in terms of how whole-class discourse is dominated by
‘teacher presentation and teacher-directed question and answer’ (Mroz et al., 2000). But
the study also reveals that within this heavily teacher-framed discourse, the
function of many factual questions does frequently attempt to elicit thinking: it is
as though teachers want to open up pupils’ thinking and reflection but cannot
relinquish the control of discourse afforded by factual questions. The pattern of
teacher dominance of whole-class discourse predates the national strategies for
literacy and numeracy, but there is some evidence here that the numeracy strat-
egy has directly led to more higher-order process questions. There is also
evidence that some of the practices advocated by the literacy strategy may have
led to an increase in teacher talk and greater demands on pupil listening. It
appears there is still a pressing need to develop pedagogic confidence in framing
discourse which permits children to be ‘active in creating their own understandings’
(Black et al., 2002), and which breaks free of the routinised teacher-child-
teacher-child interaction pattern so strongly present in all classes investigated for
this research. At the heart of this is the need to recognise that creating cognitive
and social space for pupil talk is intrinsically related to the quality of the learning
experience: ‘finding the right words, giving shape to an idea, articulating what is
meant: this is where language is synonymous with learning’ (DfEE, 2001).

Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Debra Myhill, University of Exeter,
School of Education and Lifelong Learning, Heavitree Road, Exeter EX1 2LU, UK
([email protected]).

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