Question-asking Skills Research Articles

GPT-3-Driven Pedagogical Agents to Train Children’s Curious Question-Asking Skills

GPT-3-Driven Pedagogical Agents to Train Children’s Curious Question-Asking Skills

Gender differences in question-asking at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting

AbstractAttendance at professional conferences is an important component of career development, because conferences are a major forum for presenting new research, interacting with colleagues and networking. An extensive literature documents differences in the professional experiences of women and men, including experiences at professional conferences. We hypothesized that women are less likely than men to ask questions at conferences, thus forgoing opportunities for professional development. To address this issue, we analyzed the question-asking behavior of women and men at the 2019 Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology. In all, 112 sessions (55% of those eligible) were randomly chosen for coding, yielding data on 577 presentations. Although approximately 50% of moderators and speakers were women, the proportion of questions asked by women was significantly lower compared with the estimated proportion of women attending the conference (23% vs 39%; P < .0001). Women were more likely to ask questions if another woman asked the first question or if the session topic was red cells. These results suggest that although women are represented equally as moderators and speakers, they are less likely to engage in the postpresentation discourse by asking questions. Encouraging women to speak up in professional situations and providing training on question-asking skills can help address this gender gap that potentially contributes to disparities in professional visibility and career advancement for women in hematology.

Questions – And Some Answers – About Young Children’s Questions

ABSTRACT Question asking plays a fundamental role in learning, and the cognitive development literature contains many studies of specific types of question-asking skills. However, little is known about the developmental course across different aspects of question asking, of which we explore: (a) the ability to ask questions that enable children to solve a specific problem, (b) the ability to ask questions that will increase general understanding about a topic, (c) the ability to recognize the relevance of information yielded by another person’s answer to a question, and (d) children’s general levels of curiosity. The current study includes four tasks assessing preschool through first-grade children’s curiosity and performance on the three different types of question-asking tasks listed above. We observed significant development between kindergarten and first grade in children’s question-asking and significant correlations among the different question-asking tasks. Children who generated more questions for problem solving were better at recognizing effective questions, and generating questions for learning was related to generating problem-solving questions. Both the ability to recognize effective questions and to generate questions for learning were positively correlated with our measure of children’s curiosity. The results and implications are discussed for understanding the development of question-asking skills and the role of curiosity as a fundamental motivator of children’s question asking.

"Are We Done Yet?" Question-Asking in Boys With Fragile X Syndrome and Idiopathic Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose Question-asking serves as a tool to learn new information and is important in both academic and social settings. Boys with idiopathic autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and boys with fragile X syndrome and comorbid ASD (FXS + ASD) have similar social communication deficits, which may have downstream effects on their question-asking ability. This study examined question-asking in school-age boys with idiopathic ASD and FXS + ASD, including the role of ASD severity, expressive grammatical complexity (measured by mean length of utterance [MLU]), and IQ. Method Twenty-five boys with FXS + ASD and 21 boys with idiopathic ASD (ages 9-16 years) were included in this study. Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule assessments were transcribed and coded for the frequency, function, and appropriateness of spontaneous questions asked. We examined group differences in these aspects of question-asking and relationships between question-asking and ASD severity, MLU, and IQ within each group. Results Boys with FXS + ASD asked more questions than boys with idiopathic ASD, although boys with idiopathic ASD asked a higher proportion of appropriate questions. Boys with idiopathic ASD also asked the examiner more personal questions than the boys with FXS + ASD. ASD severity and MLU were related to the proportion of clarification questions in FXS + ASD, and ASD severity was also related to the proportion of personal questions in this group. For the boys with idiopathic ASD, ASD severity was related to the total number of questions asked. Conclusions Our findings highlight similarities and differences between boys with FXS + ASD and idiopathic ASD in their spontaneous question production and indicate that ASD severity and grammatical language are differentially important for question-asking. This study has implications for targeted treatment in question-asking skills for boys with FXS + ASD and ASD.

A Statistical Analysis of Student Questions in a Cell Biology Laboratory

Asking questions is an essential component of the practice of science, but question-asking skills are often underemphasized in science education. In this study, we examined questions written by students as they prepared for laboratory exercises in a senior-level cell biology class. Our goals were to discover 1) what types of questions students asked about laboratory activities, 2) whether the types or quality of questions changed over time, and 3) whether the quality of questions or degree of improvement was related to academic performance. We found a majority of questions were about laboratory outcomes or seeking additional descriptive information about organisms or processes to be studied. Few questions earned the highest possible ranking, which required demonstration of extended thought, integration of information, and/or hypotheses and future experiments, although a majority of students asked such a question at least once. We found no correlation between types of student questions or improvement in questions and final grades. Only a small improvement in overall question quality was seen despite considerable practice at writing questions about science. Our results suggest that improving students' ability to generate higher-order questions may require specific pedagogical intervention.

Improving question asking in high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Small-group training consisting of feedback and self-management was effective in improving question-asking skills during tutorial conversations in nine high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Training was implemented in a therapy room and lasted 6 weeks. Sessions were conducted once a week and lasted about an hour. Experimenters collected data during tutorial conversations in a natural setting. Training of question-asking skills consisted of verbal feedback and role-play during short simulated conversations and a table game. A self-management strategy and common stimuli (e.g., flowchart) were included to promote generalization. Mean percentage of correct questions during tutorial conversations improved significantly after training. Response efficiency also increased. Participants and personal coaches evaluated the training as effective and acceptable.

Can undergraduate biology students learn to ask higher level questions?

Our goals in this study were to explore the type of written questions students ask after reading one or more chapters from their textbook, and to investigate the ability of students to improve their questions during the course of a single semester. In order to classify student's questions we used a taxonomy that we have developed specifically for this purpose. Two comparable populations were examined: Undergraduate students in a large, introductory biology class who were taught in traditional lecture format, and students in a similar class who were taught in cooperative/active learning style. After the taxonomy was presented to the active learning class, more students were able to pose better, written questions. Their questions became more insightful, thoughtful, and content-related, and were not easily answered by consulting the textbook or another readily available source. The best questions could be recast as scientific research questions (i.e., hypotheses). In contrast, when the taxonomy was presented to students in the traditionally taught class, the quality of student-posed questions was largely unchanged. Various explanations for the difference in outcomes are discussed, and methods are suggested about how generally to encourage students' questions and to improve their question-asking skills regardless of overall teaching style. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 854–870, 2000

Question Asking During Tutoring

Whereas it is well documented that student question asking is infrequent in classroom environments, there is little research on questioning processes during tutoring. The present study investigated the questions asked in tutoring sessions on research methods (college students) and algebra (7th graders). Student questions were approximately 240 times as frequent in tutoring settings as classroom settings, whereas tutor questions were only slightly more frequent than teacher questions. Questions were classified by (a) degree of specification, (b) content, and (c) question-generation mechanism to analyze their quality. Student achievement was positively correlated with the quality of student questions after students had some experience with tutoring, but the frequency of questions was not correlated with achievement. Students partially self-regulated their learning by identifying knowledge deficits and asking questions to repair them, but they need training to improve these skills. We identified some ways that tutors and teachers might improve their question-asking skills.

Acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of question-answering skills in autistic children.

We conducted an investigation to evaluate the effects of a training strategy for teaching autistic students generalized responses to three forms of wh--questions (what, how, and why). Students were taught, using modeling and reinforcement procedures, to answer questions with magazine pictures as the referents. Each question form was divided into two or more subcomponents reflective of common social usage and was taught within the context of a modified multiple probe design across subcomponents. Following acquisition of each subcomponent, generalization to natural context and storybook questions was assessed; additional probes were conducted to assess responding over time and whether acquisition of responses to questions promoted question-asking skills. Results showed that the picture training procedure was effective in teaching a generalized response to questions for which the relevant cue was visible, whereas specific generalization programming was required for situations in which the relevant cue was not visible. All acquired responses were durable over time.

A Decision Tree for Psychology Majors: Supplying Questions as Well as Answers

This article describes the development of a psychology careers decision tree. Especially in departments with heavy advising loads, using a psychology careers decision tree can be an effective time-management technique for advisers. In addition, students who use the decision tree may benefit by learning more about their career options and by acquiring better question-asking skills.

Influence of Alternate Approaches to Pre-Primary Educational Stimulation and Question-Asking Skills

AbstractThe influence of the creative-aesthetic and a traditional kindergarten approach to educational stimulation on the question-asking skills of 5-year-old children in 5-person groups was investigated. The Ss were forty-eight 5-year-old children under the creative-aesthetic approach, forty-five 5-year-olds under a traditional kindergarten approach, and fifty-five 6-year-olds under a traditional first grade approach. Subjects were assigned to 5-person groups and administered a question-asking test. Analysis of the data supported the hypothesis that the creative- aesthetic approach accelerates the development of question-asking skills more than the traditional kindergarten approach and more than a traditional first grade program without a pre-primary program.

Questioning skills among advantaged and disadvantaged children in first grade.

The evaluation of questioning skills among 200 first-grade Ss (100 advantaged and 100 disadvantaged) on the question-asking activity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking utilized an 11-category system of classification for analysis. A comparison of the categories indicate that the disadvantaged Ss seem to be at a lower developmental level of question-asking skills than their advantaged counterparts.