Open AccessMoral Complexities of Student Question-Asking in Classroom Practice
Author(s) -
Stephen C. Yanchar,
Susan Peterson Gong
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
phenomenology and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1913-4711
DOI - 10.29173/pandpr29442
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , situated , epistemology , phenomenon , value (mathematics) , context (archaeology) , psychology , sociology , interpretation (philosophy) , philosophy , paleontology , linguistics , machine learning , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
Prior research on student question-asking has primarily been conducted from a cognitive, epistemological standpoint. In contrast, we present a hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation that emphasizes the moral-practical context in which question-asking functions as a situated way of being in the midst of practice. More particularly, we present a hermeneutic study of student question-asking in a graduate seminar on design theory (i.e., a seminar focused on theory and philosophy of design, emphasizing the work of design scholars such as Simon, Cross, Krippendorff, and Lawson). The study offers a unique moral-practical perspective on this commonly studied phenomenon. Our analysis yielded four themes regarding the moral-practical intricacies of question-asking in this setting, with a particular focus on time-related constraints on participation, various types of background understanding, and value-laden expectations that participants encountered in this complex ecology of practice.