Beyond the question/nonquestion alternative in classroom discussion.

Abstract

A study appearing in Teaching and Teacher Education (Dillon, 1985) concluded that teacher questions are likely to foil classroom discussion, whereas the use of nonquestions is more likely to foster student talk. Reexamination of Dillon's original data suggests that factors other than the syntactical form of the teacher utterance influence student talk: (a) the distinction between questions intended to initiate discussion and questions meant to sustain student talk, (b) the influence of teacher talk on student expectations, and (c) the nature of the topic of discussion as it relates to student background knowledge and interest. In an article appearing in Teaching and Teacher Education, Dillon (1985) made the provocative assertion that teacher questions foil discussion, whereas nonquestion alternatives foster discussion. In his study, 7 high school teachers were observed as they intentionally conducted discussions with their classes. Ten-minute excerpts were randomly gathered and analyzed from each discussion. The time length of students' responses was measured, and the relationship between response length and the syntactical form (question/nonquestion) of the antecedent teacher utterances was examined. Within each classroom, student responses tended to be longer after teacher nonquestions than after teacher questions. Dillon concluded that questions foil discussion regardless of the teacher's personality or apparent proficiency, the nature of the students, the topic of the discussion, or the school.