The Ability of Young Children to Ask Questions: More Questions, More Intelligent Child?

Abstract

The focus of paper is the ability to ask questions - originally a natural manifestation of children's inquisitiveness, which should be grown and developed at school. The study deals with the question skill at preschool and early school age (children 5 to 7, N=161). Ready2ask method had been created to measure the number of question asked via visual and linguistic stimulus. It was verified that the ability of children to ask questions varies consistently, regardless of stimulus type. An average of 5±3 questions on visual stimulus and 2±2 questions on linguistic stimuli have been recorded. Ability to ask questions was correlated with IQ (Pearson r= .321 to .454). Children with higher intelligence ask usually more questions with both visual and linguistic stimulus. It was found that the number of questions generated by the indifferent visual stimulus is a good predictor of IQ, especially its verbal component (r= .503). Short tasks similar to our ones (Here is a footprint of unknown animal, what should we know about it? or Think of as many questions beginning with the word what.) This might be a simple tool that can help and assistance to teachers in kindergartens for nominating gifted children in preschool age.