4. MEDIATING MEANING: A FRAMEWORK FOR QUESTIONING 1. Introduction
4.4.2. Discussion: Ill-structured problems and Open Questions
In order to facilitate a discussion, the tutor asks questions that are perplexing to self, that is, questions to which the tutor may not know the answer. These are open- ended questions, intended to elicit discussion. Unlike recitation, the tutor does not monopolise talk time, but rather allows all learners to talk amongst themselves. The answers to be arrived at are negotiated ones, open for discussion rather than closed for answer. The correctness of the answer is not predetermined, as in recitation, but is negotiated. No single, final correct answer exists, several answers may be right and there may be different answers for different learners. These open questions are the kinds of questions, which characterise academic endeavour; they are the ill- structured problem type questions, which Strohm-Kitchener talks about. Clearly, these kinds of questions provide the basis for the greatest learning by shifting learners from their familiar understandings to knew unfamiliar knowledge (Craig, 1992). Although, obviously, discussion is the ideal in that it promotes independent questioning in learners, it will be argued in the discussion that this questioning format is not appropriate where learners do not share a level of understanding with the tutor.
Some learners, it will be argued, may initially benefit from recitation.
4.4.3. Feedback Questions: Metacognitive instruction.
In order to learn, one must be able to effectively monitor one's engagement with the task. The ability to regulate one's actions in solving a task, to control what behaviours or solutions will solve this particular task, is crucial to progress in learning. Strohm-Kitchener (1983) refers to the ability to monitor one's action in problem solving as metacognition. Pinard (1986) elaborates Strohm-Kitchener's (1983) notion of the self-regulatory nature of metacognition as entailing both control over what the task demands as well as knowledge over one's self (see also chapter 4, pages 70-71). So, metacognition refers to a learner's ability to monitor and regulate his/her mental processes during engaging with (or learning how to engage with) a new task. Clearly, -.yhere learners' do not exercise metacognitive control over a task, it is necessary for tutors' to include metacognitive instruction in their teaching in order to assist learners' to develop this ability. In the university context,
metacognitve instruction models how learners' should approach text, demonstrating how to focus on relevant information in the text. Further, metacognitive instruction provides learners' with feedback regarding their engagement with both tasks as well as the text. One of the most important functions metacognitive instruction serves at university is to mediate learners' access to text by explicitly unravelling the demands of assessment/examination questions as well as modelling the correct 'moves' required for arriving at a good answer. Miller (1996) has noted that underprepared learners very often are unable to appreciate how to answer an essay or examination question, because they are unable to evaluate what counts as a good answer. In addition, these learners general lack of familiarity with the demands of textuality, results in them approaching examination questions with an inappropriate framework.
Consequently, the metacognitive instruction provided in tutorials can model for learners how they should approach examination questions as well as demonstrating how to ask open questions, mediating learners' access to textuality.
4.4.4. Assessment Questions
Assessment and learning are often viewed as separate processes, which serve separate educational goals (Woodward, 1998). In so far as assessment tests learners' current knowledge base and not their potential, it is indeed separate from learning. However, one may view assessment and learning as complimentary processes that together, as opposed to separately, lead to effective learning. The extent to which assessment questions can provoke leaming and new understanding depends on the nature of the question. Thus, puzzle type problems (such as addition in mathematics), for which a single correct answer and method for obtaining that answer exists, will provoke certain responses from learners. Ill-structured problems, on the other hand, for which no single answer or guaranteed method of obtaining that answer exists, require different kinds of actions from learners trying to solve these problems. School examinations tend to rely heavily on asking puzzle-type questions (Strohm-Kitchener, 1983). Therefore, learners' embarking on their first year of university study, familiar with this type of question, view assessment in much the same way that they view school assessment; as a means of 'rehashing' course content, rather than as a means of developing their critical abilities in relation to text (Allison & Gupta, 1997; Stefani, 1998; Dalziel, 1998). Hence, many learners do not approach examinations with the critical stance required to effectively engage with the type of questions characteristic of problem solving in the Human Sciences, namely, ill-structured questions (Schleppegrell& Simich-Dudgeon, 1996). Faced with an examination question, learners' respond to the question with familiar techniques learnt from school (Thomson& Falchikov, 1998). However, assessment questions, especially in the human sciences, demand a critical (as opposed to merely
repetitious) response from learners. Moreover, assessment questions require that the student is capable of selecting the content required to answer the question. Thus, learners must appreciate that questions constrain certain responses. The need to
evaluate evidence, appreciating the open-ended nature of enquiry is contained within an assessment question.
Unlike examination questions encountered in school, assessment questions in the human sciences have a dual focus; first they demand that the learner provide the correct content required and second, they demand that learners' respond in a critical manner (Miller, 1996; 1997). Further, an 'authentic' question, one that enquires about a problem in order to know about it, is not necessarily posed as a question
(Bradbury, 1997). Thus, any enquiry, even an apparent statement, may mask a hidden question. This type of question is precisely the kind of question posed in examinations. This is also the type of questioning stance underlying tutors' use of open questions in tutorial interactions. Appearing as a statement, the critical
demands implicitly embedded in the question are not apparent to learners. It is these implicit form (as opposed to the content) instructions, contained within the question that learners struggle to engage with. Instructions to discuss, or compare, evaluate or contrast are unfamiliar to many learners who have been trained throughout their schooling to simply restate the content of the course in the examination. This critical demand, implicit in the question itself, needs to be explicitly 'opened up' for learners, with tutors actively modelling open questioning techniques demonstrating for learners how to approach examination questions in order to engage with the form, as opposed to merely the content. of the question (Miller. 1997). To this end, tasks that model examples of examination questions coupled with feedback to these tasks should form part of any entry level course in the human sciences, with the task mediating
learners' critical engagement with assessment questions. In this way, tasks and feedback provide a model for learners' engagement with Human Science
assessment questions by explicitly highlighting how learners should address form instructions embedded in examination questions. (See also Craig and Bradbury, 1994 for further insight into how one can 'open' up assessment questions for
An Exploration of Questioning in Tutorial Interactions
learners). However, where learners are unable to engage effectively with written tasks, the tutors use of open questions and metacognitive instruction models how learners should approach the ill-structured problems facing them at university.
In tutorial interactions, tutors' open questions are verbal presentations of assessment type questions. As tutors' are familiar with the demands of textuality, they are able to ask questions that are essentially textual, such as implication or relational questions. These are precisely the kinds of questions learners must engage with during examinations. Therefore, especially where learners' evidence an inability to engage with assessment type questions, tutors' use of open questions and responses can verbally model appropriate ways of questioning in order to engage in academic enquiry.
4.5. Concluding Comments
In conclusion, the Vygotskian (1978) notion of mediation enables us to appreciate teaching as the external regulation of learners' actions, facilitating learners' active construction of knowledge. Further, we are able to understand the crucial role self- regulation plays in learning and problem solving. The ability to regulate one's actions in relation to knowledge, then, begins as external regulation before being intemalised as self-regulation. The central role questioning plays in enquiry and self-regulation informs the specific focus on questions in this research. Moreover, questions point to an' underlying epistemic base. Therefore, questions can be viewed as products that point to the underlying epistemic assumptions informing learners' approach to academic enquiry. The identification of a categorical framework in which to understand how questions can open or close enquiry is elaborated in chapter 5.