Students' questions: a potential resource for teaching and learning science

TLDR

Students’ questions are a valuable resource for meaningful learning and scientific inquiry, yet their full potential for enhancing teaching and learning remains largely untapped. The paper aims to review existing research on students’ questions and explore ways to advance future work in this area. The authors review empirical studies on students’ questions across four domains—question types, teaching effects, variable relationships, and teacher/student responses—and discuss implications for classroom instruction. The study concludes by proposing several future research directions that could significantly benefit student learning.

Abstract

Students' questions play an important role in meaningful learning and scientific inquiry. They are a potential resource for both teaching and learning science. Despite the capacity of students' questions for enhancing learning, much of this potential still remains untapped. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine and review the existing research on students' questions and to explore ways of advancing future work into this area. The paper begins by highlighting the importance and role of students' questions from the perspectives of both the learner and the teacher. It then reviews the empirical research on students' questions, with a focus on four areas: (1) the nature and types of these questions; (2) the effects of teaching students questioning skills; (3) the relationship between students' questions and selected variables; and (4) teachers' responses to, and students' perceptions of, students' questions. Following this, some issues and implications of students' questions for classroom instruction are discussed. The paper concludes by suggesting several areas for future research that have significant value for student learning.