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 (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. Key words: Questioning strategies, teacher education, quality instruction.