Questions may be the most powerful technologies of all! Questions allow us to solve problems, make decisions, change phenomena, make improvements, and invent new and better ways of doing things.
The Story
Almost two years ago, this scenario actually occurred. It continues to trouble me. The situation was something like this: I was visiting a high school to observe a practicum student (a student studying to become a school library media specialist). As I walked towards the library media center, I heard a teacher talking to a group of students in a computer lab. The instructor explained, "Hey, I can show you a quick way to write a research paper. Just put in the right keyword, locate the information you need for your research paper, and print it out. It's as easy as that nowadays!" I recall one girl exclaiming, "Cool, I hate to write papers!"
The Problem
As wonderful as the Internet is--in every imaginable way--it presents a considerable problem. Students today can plagiarize with the click of a mouse. What is plagiarism? Synonyms include copying, stealing, and illegal use. I first believed that the entire answer to this dilemma was critical, appropriate evaluation of electronic information. Indeed, this is a vitally important aspect of Internet use. It is not, however, the complete answer to the significant and ongoing problem of plagiarism in schools today. It is frightening--and there should be an answer. Powerful questioning, I believe, is the one solution.
Have you observed the "research" students conduct in your school library media center? I have. Many students, via teacher instruction, appear to be at the "read it and repeat it" or the "find it and print it" level. Questions that require only lower-level thinking (knowledge or memorization) practically encourage plagiarism. Questions requiring higher-level thinking--inferential reasoning, hypothesis formation, evaluation, analysis, and synthesis--simply do not occur frequently. The reality is that students will study and learn based on the questions posed.
The Examples
Let's look at some examples of research questions. An assignment specifies, "Write about a President of the United States," or "Write about a famous author," or "What are the stages of cell division?" or "What is the law of supply and demand?" or "Explain the process of digestion." These examples require lower-level thinking skills and lead students to canned answers and possible plagiarism.
This situation can be avoided. Students can be encouraged to use critical thinking skills simply by being asked the right higher-level thinking questions.
Questioning is essential for learning and growing. However, in many cases, the questioning process has been reduced and oversimplified to a search for pre-packaged answers. Questions are intended to provoke thought and inspire reflection, but all too often the process is cut short by the simple answer or the quick truth (or "untruth" whichever the case may be). Appropriate questioning fuels the inventive process required to create something new. Without these types of questions, students are prisoners of conventional wisdom and may become victims of the "trend of the day" Let's face it: Questions may be the most powerful technologies of all! Questions allow us to solve problems, make decisions, change phenomena, make improvements, and invent new and better ways of doing things.
The Reason
Teachers and school library media specialists ask questions for many purposes. There are certainly logical and purposeful reasons for asking memory, knowledge, and comprehension questions--ones that require lower-level thinking skills. However, the focus of this article is on research questions that require screening several sources and engaging in critical thinking skills. Teachers and library media specialists must learn to develop questions that discourage "find it and print it" processes. Higher-level questions ask students to mentally manipulate pieces of information previously learned to create an answer or to support an answer with logical evidence. They require comparing and contrasting, predicting, evaluating, hypothesizing, reconstructing, inferring, judging, defending, and valuing by students. These questions may be divided into four basic types: interpretative, evaluative, inferential, and synthesis.
The Questions
Let's look at the four types of questions and how they create a "solution"
1. Interpretive Questions propose that students understand the consequences of information or ideas.
Example: A literature teacher requires students to research Robert Frost's The Road Less Traveled and asks, "Imagine if Frost discussed three roads that converged rather than two. How would this change the poems meaning?"
2. Evaluative Questions use a set of criteria to arrive at a reasoned judgment. Evaluative questions ask students to judge, defend, and justify a situation.
Example: A history teacher requires that students respond to the following question, "How successful would a federal income tax cut be in controlling inflation as well as decreasing employment?"
3. Inferential Questions require that students go beyond information that is immediately available. To push beyond the factual in this way is to ask students to find clues, examine them, and discuss what inferences are justified.
Example: An English teacher asks students to investigate this question, "Why did Jonathan Swift write Gulliver's Travels?"
4. Synthesis Questions allow students to put parts together to form a new pattern, whole, or structure. Synthesis is the development of new possibilities by modifying and rearranging elements.
Example: A science teacher asks students to research the following, "How would you proceed if you were going to do an experiment on protein consumption and weight reduction?"
The Solution
Many teachers understand questions to be one of the most familiar and powerful tools of teaching. Unfortunately, much inquiry--and hence research--requires only lower-level thinking skills. Providing higher-level questioning and research assignments takes perception and practice. As school library media specialists, we must provide training in how to encourage thinking through questioning. We must educate teachers to conduct proper questioning and research strategies. Introducing one type of question at a time with models of how it can be answered is one way to introduce the thinking skills required.
Powerful questioning leads to information power, the ability to fashion solutions, decisions, and plans that are original, cogent, and effective. Powerful questions are the foundation for information literacy. Higher-level questions encourage students to think more deeply and critically, to problem solve, and to seek information on their own. And, higher-level questions discourage plagiarism.
Plagiarism undoubtedly is, and has been, problematic in schools for numerous years. However, more sophisticated technologies have compounded the problem. One solution to this predicament lies in questioning. Through effective higher-level questioning, students cannot "locate and print." They are encouraged to learn to think, reason, analyze, synthesize, infer, interpret, and evaluate; and to become information literate, lifelong learners.
Ann Marlow Riedling is Assistant Professor and Chair of Educational Media Librarianship, Spalding University, Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of Reference Skills for the School Library Media Specialist: Tools and Tips and the co-author of the forthcoming title Catalog It! A Guide to Cataloging School Library Materials. Linworth Publishing, Inc. publishes both titles.
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