An analysis of teachers questioning strategies

Questioning has been utilized as a critical assessment tool for centuries. It has been thought that there is a relationship between asking good questions and effective teaching. In order to analyze teachers' questioning strategies from various aspects, this study was conducted during the 2014-2015 academic year with 170 primary school teachers working in the schools located in the center of Gaziantep Province in Turkey. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire prepared by the researchers, and were examined via content analysis. Explanatory mixed method design was used to analyze the research problem. The findings of this study revealed that: (1) Teachers asked divergent questions to draw attention and interest; (2) Teachers have misunderstanding of divergent and convergent questions; (3) Teachers mostly ask questions to entire class than individual; (4) Teachers asked most frequently questions aimed at uncovering operational knowledge and least frequently questions whose goal was to uncover metacognitive knowledge; (5) Teachers generally used probing questions, prolonged waiting time and did not ask vague questions; and (6) Teachers did not use questions as a punishment tool. This study revealed that asking good questions must be considered more important in pre-service education and teachers must be supported with in-service trainings to be more effective in asking questions.