School: institution where children

learn the answers without asking

questions?

Jana M. Havigerová, Kateřina Juklová University of Hradec Králové

Czech Republic

Introduction

• natural part of cognitive process

• the trigger of thinking• type of question and type of

thinking• asking questions as a tool of

intentional cognitive development

The power of asking question

Information behaviour

– developed by the need of getting information(Wilson, 1981)

– important part of information literacy in contemporary information society

– questioning skill as a predictor of information behaviour

Research objectives

• Analyze questions asked in natural Czech school conditions

Research procedure

Czech National Corpus Schola 2010

• transcript of spoken language from basic and secondary school lessons

• 204 lessons in 115 different classes

• 47 teachers and 2347 pupils• 20 489 identified questions

Notes

Results

Number of question asked during one lesson

Statistics

The number of questionsduring one lesson

Teacher Class One pupil

Total

N 204 204 204

Mean 80,89 19,36 1,11 100,25

Median 74,50 15,00 1,00 94,00

St.deviation 43,195 16,344 1,45 45,469

Who asks more questions?

Statistics

The number of questioners

Boys Girls Boys Girls

N 204 204 Quartile 25 2,00 1,00

Mean 4,07 2,84 Quartile 50 4,00 2,00

Median 4,00 2,00 Quartile 75 5,75 4,00

St.deviation 2,92 2,35

Conclusions

Asking questions in Czech schools

– teacher ask scarse amount of questions

– most asked questions are low-level questions activating memory, not thinking

– teachers do not encourage pupils to ask questions

– pupils questions are often discouraged (predominately negative content and emotional response)

Notes

Thank you for your questions

Kateřina Juklová katerina.juklova@uhk.czJana M. Havigerová jana.havigerova@uhk.cz

Faculty of EducationUniversity of Hradec Kralove

Czech republic