Questioning as an instructional method: Does it affect learning from lectures?

Abstract

What can be done to improve student engagement and learning in college lectures? One approach is to ask questions that students answer during the lecture. In two lab experiments, students received a 25-slide PowerPoint lecture in educational psychology that included four inserted multiple-choice questions (questioning group) or four corresponding statements (control group). Students in the questioning group used a personal response system (PRS), in which they responded to questions using a hand-held remote control, saw a graph displaying the percentage of students voting for each answer, and heard the teacher provide an explanation for the correct answer. Students in the control group received the corresponding slide as a statement and heard the teacher provide an explanation. The questioning group outperformed the control group on a retention test in Experiment 1 (d ¼ 1.23) and on a transfer test in Experiment 2 (d ¼ 0.74), but not on other tests. The results are consistent with a generative theory of learning, and encourage the appropriate use of questioning as an instructional method.Consider the following scenario: Students are attending a large college class where the teacher gives a lecture using PowerPoint slides. The teacher presents slides and talks about each one, while the students appear to sit passively. On a subsequent test, the students do not perform well on remembering the material or using it to solve problems. What can be done to increase student involvement in the class? In other words, how can a large lecture class be redesigned to enable student participation?One approach to this problem is to use a questioning technique in which the instructor presents a multiple-choice question covering some of the presented material, each student selects an answer, the tally of votes for each alternative is presented, the instructor calls on a student to briefly justify the correct answer, and the instructor explains his or her reasoning in selecting the correct answer. In this way, all students are able to participate in a large lecture class-albeit in a fairly modest way.Our goal in the present set of laboratory experiments is to determine whether incorporating this kind of questioning technique results in better learning from a lecture as compared to conventional practice. In particular, we compare the learning outcomes of students who receive a 25-slide PowerPoint lecture in educational psychology containing four inserted questions-each on a slide-that involve the questioning technique APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Instructional advice, time advice and learning questions in computer simulations

“…Empirical evidence for the feedback principle is supported by several studies (see Moreno & Mayer, 2007; cf. also with the questioning principle postulated from Campbell and Mayer, 2009). …”

“…Students who received questions prompts in printed format or through the Internet outperformed those who received no prompts on all four dependent measures. While previous studies used learning questions in case-based learning in technology-enhanced learning environments, presented ill-structured tasks in the context of a lecture session, or used questions and feedback during a lecture (Campbell & Mayer, 2009), the present study attempts to extend these findings for computer simulations. Therefore, the third hypothesis predicts that students who are given learning questions (without feedback) about the content of the computer simulation while using the simulation perform better on retention and transfer than do students for whom these questions are absent.…”

An Eight-year Retrospective Study in “Flipped” Pharmacokinetics Courses

“…Questioning techniques have an effect size of 0.40. 6,7 Team-based learning (TBL) is popular in health science education and is a model of the flipped classroom. Studies on TBL found positive effects in student engagement, communication skills, and critical-thinking skills.…”

Utdanningsledelse og digitale læringsformeri høyere utdanning

“…I PEK-prosjektene har man mellom annet lagt til grunn internasjonale studier som viser at spørsmålstilling i seg selv i forelesninger kan øke studenters laeringsutbytte (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006;Campbell & Mayer, 2009), men det sier seg selv at dette må forberedes nøye som en del av laeringsledelsen. Mye tyder på at slike didaktiske grep stimulerer kognitiv aktivitet og oppmerksomhet, mer enn en tradisjonell monolog fra forelesers side.…”