The influences of three types of peer-questioning scaffoldings on online peer learning in a virtual museum environment

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ABSTRACT Peer questioning scaffoldings have potentials to improve students’ meaning making and knowledge construction, as well as promote students’ high-order cognitive skills in online peer learning settings. However, existing empirical research reported controversial results concerning the effects of various peer-questioning scaffoldings and limited research employed integrated methods to offer process-oriented, summative, and psychological or emotional evidence regarding the effects of peer questioning on student learning. To address these gaps, this research employed three types of peer-questioning scaffoldings (i.e. comprehension questions, deep-reasoning questions, and argumentation questions) in an online peer learning research and empirically investigated the effects of three types of peer-questioning on the pair of students’ collaborative processes and performance. Results showed that comprehension questions had the worst effects on peer learning process; deep-reasoning questions promoted interactive perspectives between peers and aroused positive emotions of students; argumentation questions stimulated individual perspective elaboration, facilitated peer conversation behaviors, and advanced students’ high level of scientific performances. Based on the empirical research results, this study highlighted the importance of aligning peer-questioning scaffoldings with instructional goals, adjusting pedagogical guidance based on task complexity, and employing dynamic scaffoldings to optimize learning outcomes.