Effects of Questioning Techniques and Recitation on Student Learning

Two experiments were done in which sixth-grade students participated in 10 ecology lessons, each involving reading/viewing of curriculum materials plus a teaching treatment. In Experiment I, four treatments were arranged in three equivalent Latin squares so that each of 12 trained teachers taught each treatment. The treatments varied presence-absence of recitation and presence-absence of probing (a follow-up question to improve a student's initial response) and redirection (asking another student to respond to the question). Experiment II followed the same design, except the treatments varied presence-absence of recitation and percentage of higher cognitive questions (25%, 50%, and 75%) within recitations. Student's information recall, attitudes toward curriculum topics, and ability to respond both in written and oral form to higher cognitive questions were assessed. In both experiments, recitation substantially improved learning, especially information recall and higher cognitive responding. Probing and redirection in Experiment I had no effect on learning. In Experiment II, recitations with 50% higher cognitive questions were unexpectedly the least effective in promoting information recall, relative to recitations with 25% or 75% higher cognitive questions.