Paper for Seville

Questioning Strategies in the Early Years Science Activity and Discourse

Diane Harris University of Manchester

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005

Abstract

This paper explores the discourse of young children, from early years through to the end of primary, involved in science activities with their teachers. It draws on previous studies of science-related discourse by Wells and Lemke.

Received wisdom in Primary ‘constructivist’ science teaching is that the teacher’s questioning role in science classes, at least in the elicitation phase, is to discover what the children already know relevant to the science to be learnt. Elstgeest (1985) identified a range of different types of questioning that teachers should use with their pupils, and highlighted ‘productive’ questions which would advance children’s learning and promote the use of their process skills: these should be open and person- centred. The SPACE Project Report, which appears to have been seminal in defining ‘good professional practice’ in the UK, supports this and recommends that, in order to encourage the children to articulate their own spontaneous ideas and misconceptions/ alternative conceptions, teachers should ask open questions.

In contrast, some educational psychologists, probably on the basis of experience, believe that four- to seven-year-old children are confused by open questions and prefer to offer the children choices. Consequently, some psychologists have argued that children’s cognitive potential can be seriously under-estimated by open questioning. Springer and Keil (1991, p. 768) report that, “…relying on open-ended interviews, as has been done in Piagetian studies of causality, would have run the risk of seriously under-representing children’s competencies.”

The socio-cultural perspective, however, suggests that assessment of the individual child's understanding, or more accurately his or her zone of proximal development, is best assessed dynamically within a socially supportive context, e.g. with the aid of cultural and social resources such as collaboration with more advanced peers/teachers and so on. The assessment of their learning will be further mediated by the structure of activity, its object, the mediating tools provided and the norms/rules of discourse Diane Harris University of Manchester employed. Within this perspective, then, it makes sense to explore the use of mediating devices such as ‘multi-choice’ questioning strategies.

Indeed, Donaldson (1978) argued that children as young as three-and-a-half understand the concept of choice and have no problem working with it. She argues that, by not giving children the clue that a problem involves certain choices, we are making things unnecessarily difficult for them. Inappropriate use of language and task rules, therefore, can create a barrier to finding out what children ‘really’ know. From the socio-cultural perspective, this offering of choices for tasks can be seen as part of the teachers’ design of a supportive scaffolding with which the child can engage.

Thus in this research we ask: to what extent do teachers of children (at different ages from 3 to 11 years) use different questioning strategies, including ‘open/closed’ and ‘person/subject centred’ questions in science discussions, and with what effect on the quality of children’s engagement?

The research will report the findings of an empirical survey under way showing the typical questioning strategies of teachers in science (and contrasting, ‘control’ English) activities with children of various ages. Preliminary results suggest that teachers’ strategy-use conformed to the expected pattern: more ‘open’ questions are used with older than younger children, and in science activities rather than English. These results also suggest that, throughout this entire age range, more person-centred questions are asked by teachers in science activities rather than in English.

In addition, case studies of small group discussions with three- and four-year-old children engaged in science activities are presented to identify how closed/open questioning strategies impact on children’s engagement with science tasks and concepts. Examples of dialogue in which different questioning strategies have varied impacts on discourse will be presented.

As yet results are preliminary, but findings suggest that the notion of ‘open-ness’ in questioning needs to be theorised as ‘distributed’, i.e. that it is a function of the entire context of discourse and not only of the structure of the ‘question’ as presented by the teacher.

This research forms parts of a PhD currently being undertaken at the University of Manchester, funded by ESRC.

- 2 - Diane Harris University of Manchester

Introduction

In September 2000, the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ was introduced by the Government for practitioners in England who teach three to five-year-olds including childminders, pre-schools, school nursery and reception classes, private day nurseries, family centres and independent schools. The Education Act 2002 extended the National Curriculum to include the Foundation Stage curriculum and it therefore became a statutory requirement for all settings in receipt of a Government Nursery Education Grant.

The Foundation Stage curriculum comprises six areas of learning:

 Personal, Social and Emotional Development  Communication, Language and Literacy  Mathematical Development  Knowledge and Understanding of the World  Physical Development  Creative Development

Each area of learning has appropriate early learning goals. Within ‘Knowledge and Understanding of the World’ are four early learning goals which deal with aspects of science under the heading of ‘Exploration and Investigation’. The early learning goals are:

 Investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate  Find out about, and identify, some features of living things, objects and events they observe  Look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change  Ask questions about why things happen and how things work

I teach trainee primary school teachers to teach science and, as part of their course, they learn about the theories of teaching science. During the summer of 2001, I decided to update my teaching skills and gain some experience of working with the new ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’. I worked as a volunteer in a private day nursery with three and four-year-old children for two full days each week for four months. I initially used the strategies I had been teaching to the trainee teachers. The majority of science teaching literature, including the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ and other literature specifically written for the Foundation Stage, advises the use of open questions for finding out children’s ideas. Open questions should encourage a child to share his or her thoughts and ideas whereas the use of closed or narrow questions, as Wragg and Brown (2001) define them, will only generate short answers and therefore limit further discussion. Very quickly, however, I discovered that using open-ended questioning did not necessarily elicit the answers for which I was hoping. I found that very often the child would appear confused and be unable to answer the question at all.

This observation appeared to be very significant, although I acknowledge that the problem may not be related to the type of question at all, so I decided to search for anyone else having similar experiences. There are various factors which may also be at work here including the vocabulary and grammar used by the teacher and understood by the child and the maturity of the child’s language generally so I expected that I would have to investigate a variety of disciplines in order to come to a better understanding of my problem.

Methodology

It was most appropriate to investigate the problem in two stages as it seemed necessary to explore what questioning strategies are actually used with different ages of children in different subjects and then to examine the effects of these different strategies on the teaching and learning of science in more detail.

An empirical survey was considered a suitable research strategy to address the first stage of the problem. Robson (1999) advises that a survey sample needs to reflect the population to be examined and therefore schools were selected from inner city, city suburbs and rural locations throughout the North West. Selecting the sample size also needed careful consideration because, due to the format of the school day in primary schools throughout England, the survey size must be restricted because of the time available to observe science. Currently literacy and numeracy occupy every morning in school and so science is usually taught for only one afternoon each week. There is, of course, more flexibility in Foundation Stage classes. According to Robson (1999), however, a sample size of one hundred observations would be appropriate for a small- scale survey. It was therefore my intention to carry out one hundred and eight observations – thirty-six in each of three year groups (Reception, Year 2 and Year 4). These observations were paired i.e. I study the same teacher teaching one science lesson and one literacy lesson so that I can compare any differences in teaching styles between the subjects. This survey is nearing completion.

For the survey I was an observer and only attended to the categories included on my classroom observation instrument. I obtained permission to record some of these lessons for moderation purposes. These data give high reliability and also high validity but this will be at the expense of complexity and completeness (Robson, 1999).

Twelve case studies are currently being undertaken to examine the effects of different questioning strategies on the teaching and learning of science in more detail. The teachers who took part in the case studies were chosen on the basis of the survey and this enriched and expounded the survey data. Based on the survey findings, I intend to observe four science-based lessons taught by four different teachers in each of the Nursery, Reception Class and Year 1. Activities and interactions are being recorded digitally for subsequent analysis. Following transcription and analysis of the recordings to date, I have taken the opportunity to discuss questioning strategy choices with each teacher to discover whether these are theory- or practice-driven.

For both the survey and the extracts from the case studies, I have classified the questions on strictly grammatical grounds. In practice, however, an open question may well be interpreted as closed in certain contexts.

Theoretical Background

The Science Processes and Concept Exploration (SPACE) Research of 1987 to 1992 also acknowledged and valued children’s ideas. It was classroom–based research that explored the ideas which pupils in primary school (five to eleven-year-olds) already possessed in science and which also investigated, within a normal classroom situation, whether the children might be encouraged to modify their ideas following relevant experiences (Osborne, Wadsworth, Black & Meadows, 1994). The Nuffield Foundation funded the research that became the basis of “Nuffield Science” which was widely used in primary schools in this country. The initial phase of the research involved sixty children divided into three categories: infants (five to seven years), lower juniors (seven to nine years) and upper juniors (nine to eleven years).

It was the teacher’s role in the ‘elicitation phase’ to discover what the children already knew by questioning. It was found that pupils from all three age groups do have prior ideas about most things, although their explanations are not always very scientific. The study then went on to investigate whether, within a normal primary classroom, the children could be encouraged during an ‘intervention phase’ to develop their prior ideas into a more scientific understanding (Russell and Watt, 1990).

The SPACE Research (Russell and Watt, 1990) also recommended that, in order to encourage the children to share their ideas, teachers should ask open and person- centred questions.

Elstgeest (1985) distinguished between ‘productive’ questions, which would advance children’s learning and promote the use of their process skills, and ‘unproductive’ questions which require specific facts and for which there is usually only one correct answer. He explained that unproductive questions should be recognizable by their ‘wordiness’ but he also identified a range of different types of productive questions that teachers could use with their pupils. These included questions: attention-focusing (have you seen?), measuring and counting (how many?), comparison (in how many ways are your plants alike?), action (what happens if?) and problem-posing (can you find a way to?). Reasoning questions (how and why?) can also be included in this group if it is made clear to the children that there is not always a unique correct answer to this type of question.

Harlen (2000) also discussed productive and unproductive questions but she has simplified the list. Her interpretation of productive questioning includes questions that reveal a child’s ideas, which enable the child to develop his or her ideas and which lead to the development of the child’s process skills. Harlen identifies open and, in particular, person-centred questions as productive questions. She also clarifies unproductive questioning since Elstgeest’s description of ‘wordiness’ is rather vague and open to misinterpretation. She identifies closed and, in particular, subject-centred questions as unproductive questions.

The significance of constructivism and productive questioning remains pivotal to children’s learning of science in primary schools. Trainee teachers across the Primary Phase, i.e. those who intend to teach Foundation Stage, KS1 and KS2 children, are advised to ask their pupils open and person-centred questions in science as put forward by the SPACE Research. This strategy has been adopted by the authors of the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ who advise that,

“Open-ended questions are important tools in developing vocabulary and in helping children think things through…” QCA, 2000, p.84.

This is reiterated in one of the Association for Science Education’s most recent publications, “Guidelines for Science in Early Years” which provides examples of open and person-centred questions to promote the children’s science skills (Newport Advisory Service, 2002). To advocate the use of open and person-centred questions with children younger than five years of age, however, the findings from the SPACE Research would need to have been extrapolated.

As previously described, I initially searched through science literature which merely reiterated the value of open-ended questioning. The breakthrough came when I delved into the discipline of psychology and discovered a paper by Springer and Keil (1991, p. 768) which reported that, “...relying on open-ended interviews, as has been done in Piagetian studies of causality, would have run the risk of seriously under- representing children’s competencies.” Their preferred questioning strategy with four to seven-year-olds is to offer the children choices. Donaldson (1978) reiterates the view that children as young as three-and-a-half understand the concept of choice and have no problem working with it. She argues that, by not giving children the clue that a problem involves choices, we are making things unnecessarily difficult for them. Language, therefore, creates a barrier to finding out what children really know. Piaget’s underestimation of children’s cognitive ability can be partially attributed to his reliance on verbal interview techniques. How can young children provide answers which truly represent their ideas if they do not fully understand the question?

Piaget was not an educationalist. He was, however, among the first to recognize the importance of children’s ideas in the context of their learning and to take their thinking seriously. The theory behind his approach is that children construct their own cognitive structures as they explore their world – a constructivist perspective of learning. These cognitive structures change through the processes of adaptation, namely assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is where the child attempts to make sense of the world in terms of his or her existing cognitive structures. Accommodation, on the other hand, is where the child changes his or her cognitive structures in order to make sense of the world. A child’s cognitive development, therefore, consists of a continuous adaptation to the environment in terms of assimilation and accommodation.

Piaget’s own description of the learning process is that:

“To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by rediscovery, and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition.” (Piaget, 1973, p. 19)

The result of his work was that child-centred approaches, which acknowledge and value children’s ideas, were developed. Piaget, however, did not believe that children were capable of engaging in such cognitive activities until around seven years of age. Prior to this, Piaget considered that children lacked concrete operational abilities such as classification, seriation, conservation and transitive reasoning (Boulton-Lewis and Catherwood, 1995). He therefore labelled this part of child development (from two to seven years) the pre-operational stage.

Socio-cultural theory originates in the seminal work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky who, although he agreed with Piaget’s theory that there are definite stages to a child’s cognitive development, felt that Piaget had underestimated the significance that language, play and direct intervention could have on a child’s learning. The role of intervention by an adult or more skilled peer formed the basis of Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD):

“The zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).

Bruner, an American psychologist, agrees with Piaget’s theory that children actively construct knowledge and he was also extremely interested in Vygotsky’s ZPD. Bruner (1996) maintains that if a child has a thorough understanding at a basic level then this will support the child through more complex problems. The teacher does not wait for the child to be ready to move on to the next stage but helps the child to make links between existing and new ideas. Therefore the teacher has to identify the difference between the child’s real level of development and his or her potential level of development. Bruner labelled his theory “scaffolding” and it forms the basis of the “spiral curriculum” where the child revisits the same principles and ideas but in a slightly more advanced form.

This socio-cultural perspective also acknowledges that when assessing a child’s cognitive abilities there is more to consider than merely what ‘stage’ the child is at or how he or she performs on a set task. Vygotsky’s theory recognizes the importance of children’s interactions with other people and their ability to learn from these encounters in dynamic and mutually beneficial ways. As Rogoff (1990, p.196) advises:

“Children's participation in communicative processes is the foundation on which they build their understanding. As children participate in ongoing activities, they adjust to the social sense of their partners and incorporate the skills and perspectives of their society. As they are assisted in problem solving, they are involved in the views and understanding of the skilled partner, in the process of stretching their concepts to find a common ground; as they collaborate and argue with others, they consider new alternatives and recast their ideas to communicate or to convince.”

Any research into teaching and learning practices has to acknowledge the overriding importance of language. It is not only a means to exchange information but is also the discourse that mediates the social practices of the teaching-learning community

(Lemke, 1995). This discourse is therefore language-in-use (Gee, 1999) and is situated in the social exchanges between teacher and learner. Teacher-child discourse is pivotal to everyday life in the classroom with a number of studies being made of teacher-talk in learning situations (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; Wells, 1986; Edwards and Mercer, 1987; Lemke, 1990). This discourse usually involves the teacher asking questions. These questions, however, have quite a different purpose than questions in other circumstances as the teacher is not seeking information (Edwards and Mercer, 1987), as typically the teacher already knows the answer. The teacher may use various questioning strategies to test the children’s knowledge, verify the children know what they are expected to do, to ensure they have been paying attention or even to manage behaviour.

Despite the ‘all-knowing’ power of the teacher in classroom discourse, there are occasions when this must be relinquished. This occurs when teachers ask ‘real’ questions because the teacher does not know the answer and needs to seek the information from his or her pupils (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1992). ‘Real’ questions occur in the extracts from the nursery and Year 1 case studies. In these particular instances, it is not the teacher who provides the knowledge for the learners but the child who provides knowledge for the adult. According to Wells (1999), this collaboration is an example of teachers and pupils as participants in learning activities where those who require help receive it from those who can supply it.

Silences or ‘thinking time’ occur in several places in the case study extracts between the end of the teacher’s question and the beginning of the child’s reply. There are four possible interpretations of these silences:

 the child was not paying attention  the child was totally absorbed with the activity  the child did not understand the question itself, the meaning being clouded by the question  the child did not know the answer to the question and was reflecting.

The fourth point is of prime importance because children have to be given time to formulate their ideas before they can possibly provide an answer (Rowe, 1974).

In the same way that there are cultural practices of the classroom, for example a child raising his or her hand to answer a question, there are also cultural practices which are elemental to science. Lemke (1993) describes these as:

“…the practices by which people "investigate" phenomena of "the natural world", and investigation means centrally the formulation or definition of what the phenomena are, the posing of specific questions about the features, processes, conditions, and relations of and among phenomena, practices of observation, experimentation, and conversion of their outcomes into communicable forms, and discursive narratives and expositions about the investigations, the outcomes, and, with great caution and even greater faith, about the phenomena themselves.”

To measure the children’s progress with respect to these cultural practices of science, I have turned to the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ and Key Stage 1

- 9 - Diane Harris University of Manchester of the National Curriculum for England. For the nursery and reception class children, the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ applies and therefore I have used the Early Learning Goals with their Stepping Stones criteria for direction. For Year 1, Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum applies and I have been guided by the appropriate level descriptors for science.

As one might expect, there are conflicts between the scientific conceptions used by the teacher and the everyday or common sense conceptions used by the children. Consequently, when the teacher has control of the discourse, it may be more focussed on science but when the children have control, then the discourse tends to be more focussed on everyday aspects. This leads to open questions being more easily interpreted in the everyday sense by the children which in turn is less helpful for the teacher. Further insight into this dilemma is provided in the extracts from the case studies.

The Survey

All the teachers I have spoken to in the course of my research have been familiar with the idea of open and closed questions. Most have then gone on to explain the reasons why they do or do not use open questions with their particular group of children. The majority admitted that they were not familiar with the terms ‘person-centred’ or ‘subject-centred’ and therefore did not consider these aspects when questioning children. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the survey data collected to date that both person- and subject-centred questions are employed in all the classrooms I have visited.

Although I collected data from complete lessons, I have only used the elicitation phase of science lessons and the shared text activity of the literacy sessions. These activities had several similarities which made the comparison the most suitable:

 They took approximately the same amount of time (dependent on the age of the children)  Both activities called for children’s ideas and therefore there was a large amount of teacher questioning  They were carried out as whole class or whole group activities by the teacher which meant that data collection was more reliable.

I had hoped to be able to compare the plenary sessions in both science and literacy but, for a variety of reasons, teachers very often omitted the plenary in one of the subjects which meant that I was unable to make a direct comparison.

Questions asked by the Teachers (as a percentage of total questions they asked) Open Questions Closed Questions Person- Subject- Person- Subject- Year Subject Centred Centred Centred Centred Group Questions Questions Questions Questions Reception 14 5 30 51 (N = 623) Science Year 2 (Elicitation 38 11 18 33 (N = 550) ) Year 4 41 11 18 30 (N = 666) Reception 5 4 35 56 (N = 423) Literacy Year 2 (Shared 35 7 17 41 (N = 442) Text) Year 4 37 14 19 30 (N = 462)

Figure 1: Types of Questions asked by the Teachers

Although the survey is only 75% complete, it has revealed some interesting statistics about the use of questions and questioning strategies within the three selected age groups.

As can be deduced from Figure 1, for the Reception Classes, 19% of the questions asked by the teacher in science were open questions whereas only 9% of the questions asked in literacy for the same age group were open questions. For Year 2 the percentages of open questions asked by the teacher rise to 49% in science and 42% in literacy. There is only a small increase in Year 4 in the number of open questions asked by the teacher: 52% in science and 51% in literacy.

Regarding person-centred questions, for the Reception Classes, 44% of the questions asked by the teacher in science were person-centred with only 4% fewer (40%) being asked in literacy for the same age group. For Year 2 the percentages of person- centred questions asked by the teacher rise to 56% in science with a similar drop of 4% to 52% in literacy. Once again there is only a small increase in Year 4 in the number of person-centred questions asked by the teacher – 59% in science and 56% in literacy.

The survey therefore reveals that there is a marked increase in the number of ‘open’ questions used with the older children in Years 2 and 4 than with the children in the reception classes in both science and literacy with more open questions being asked in science. Also, there is a gradual increase in the number of person-centred questions being asked by the teachers as the age of the child increases.

As a result of the findings in the survey, I decided that one year group for the case studies should be children in reception classes as there was such a marked reduction in the use of open questions compared to Years 2 and 4. For the other two age groups I decided that nursery (three to four-year-olds) and Year 1 (five to six-year-olds) should provide the greatest insight into young children’s ability to answer different types of questions.

The Case Studies

As described previously, the purpose of the survey was to provide an insight into the types of questioning strategies that are actually used with three pre-determined year groups in primary schools. The survey identified that teachers of reception classes use far fewer open questions than the teachers of Years 2 and 4. These findings therefore suggested that the questioning strategies used with reception class children should be the focus of four of my case studies and that the age groups either side similarly warranted more detailed examination.

Due to limited space in this paper, I decided to concentrate on brief extracts from three of the case studies. I have selected a Nursery Class, a Reception Class and a Year 1 class from schools which are all located in the suburbs of Manchester in the North West of England and are maintained by the Local Education Authority. The extracts were chosen because the lessons all took place in the final half term of the school year and they shared the topic of snails. Another factor in the choice of extracts is the requirement that they contained examples of open questions and consequently the percentage of open questions appears somewhat higher than those given in the survey data.

In the Nursery Class

This first transcription is an extract from an activity in which I am the teacher and I introduce five four-year-old children to garden snails (see Figure 2). By the time of this activity, I have been visiting these children for two hours each week for eight months. The children and I are all seated around one of the tables and the snails are in a large transparent plastic container in the centre of the table. The purpose of this initial activity was to encourage the children to overcome any fears they may have about the snails by watching them very carefully inside the container, to communicate their observations to the rest of the group and to learn about some of the features of the snails.

When this discourse begins, the children have already recognized that the creatures inside the container are alive and that they are snails because they have shells.

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses 7:36 Ian Why’re some at the top and The snails are Pupil question (goes bottom? in a unanswered). transparent container.

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses 7:40 Teacher (1.3) Why do you think some Open question O1. are at the top and some are at It is also person- the bottom? centred because it asks child’s opinion, “Why do you think…?” 7:43 Ian Because some got at the Ian stares at Reply R1 to O1. [top]. the snails in An answer which the container. needed clarification. 7:45 Beth [Because] they’re slimy. R2 to O1: elicited relevant feature of the snails. 7:47 Teacher They are slimy. Why do you The teacher Feedback confirms think they’re slimy, Beth? holds up the and supports R2. container in O2. front of Beth 7:52 Beth Because they’ve got (1.2) R2 reinforced. slime (1.0) slime. 7:56 Teacher Slime. Where have you Feedback again and seen slime before? O3. 8.00 Beth Err. Thinking time. 8:01 Ellie In trails. R3 to O3: made connection between slime and recollection of observation. 8:03 Teacher Yes, slimy trails. Well done. Feedback to R3. 8:05 Ellie They’ve got slimy trails. New comment: connects slime and trails to snails. Science: made the connection. 8:07 Teacher Ahh. So where have you O4. seen these slimy trails? (2.0) 8:11 Ian I (0.7) I, I SAW THEM IN R4 to O4: connection PORTUGAL. to outside school experience. 8:16 Teacher In Portugal, Ian? Closed question C1 directed to Ian.

8:19 Ian I (0.5) and I always see them R5 to C1: connection on the Port at Portugal in the of snails to sea. recollection of sea snails. 8:24 Teacher Sea snails? C2: a ‘real’ question since the teacher does not know the answer. 8:27 Ian Yes. R6 to C2. 8:29 Teacher Oh, brilliant. Can you tell me, Feedback to C2. what do they look like? (1.5) O5: a second ‘real’ question: Ian has become the teacher in discourse genre?

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses Power shift? 8:33 Tom [I seen…] Thinking time gives Tom his chance to become part of the discourse. 8:35 Teacher [Ian] tell me what the sea Directive: the teacher snails look like. reaffirms that she wants to hear what Ian has to say. 8:40 Sam Hey, he can’t get up. Sam points to Sam tries to join in. the only snail left at the bottom of the container 8:42 Teacher Ian, do they look like these C3: again the teacher snails? asks Ian for information about the sea snails. 8:44 Ian No. (0.5) They’re bigger. R7 to C3: comparison with the snails in the container. 8:46 Teacher Wow. Ian smiles. Feedback to R7.

Figure 2: Looking at snails in the nursery

This first example of open questioning is very much guided by the children’s own questions, concerns and interests. In fact, it begins with Ian asking why some of the snails are at the top of the container and some are at the bottom (line 7:36). These four-year-olds are being initiated into the cultural practices of science one of which is asking questions about why things happen (taken from the Early Learning Goals), as Ian has just done. I do not answer him directly but ask him for his ideas.

Person-centred questions solicit a child’s own ideas about the subject matter and therefore do not pressure the child into providing the ‘right answer’. They are generally of the form ‘why do you think…?’ and ‘what do you think…?’ I therefore asked an open person-centred question which should encourage Ian to describe how some of the snails have reached the top of the container but instead he states that some “got at the top” (line 7:43). This could imply either that some of the snails moved to the top in some way or that some were simply at the top already. I did not pursue this particular answer because Ellie responded to the same question with a more interesting answer. She said that some were at the top “because they’re slimy” (line 7:45).

My open question had encouraged Beth to give share her ideas with the rest of the class. I agreed with her comment believing that she had made the connection between the moving snails and the presence of slime. The snail actually crawls on the slime it produces which reduces the friction between its foot sole and the ground. The snail moves by making undulating movements of the foot sole. To gain further insight into Beth’s ideas about the presence of slime, I used another open person-centred question

(line 7:47). Instead of explaining her reasoning, Beth hesitatingly said, “Because they’ve got slime” (line 7:52) which provides no new information. Although her initial answer suggested that she knew that the slime was associated with the movement of the snails - which would have been scientifically correct and would also have shown that she was engaging in the cultural practices of science by identifying features of living things (taken from the Early Learning Goals) - in actual fact her response merely reinforced her initial answer.

The open questions do not seem to help Beth to achieve more than she would if she were working alone. A closed person-centred question, for example, “Do you think the snails can move because they’re slimy?” or a closed subject-centred question, for example, “Do snails move because they’re slimy?” may have scaffolded her thinking by linking the previous discourse and thus enabled her to make the connection.

In the second example, I use an open person-centred question to discover where the children have seen slimy trails (line 8:07). There are numerous trails on the side of the container which are clearly visible. After a ‘wait-time’ of two seconds, Ian informs the group that he has seen snail trails in Portugal (line 8:11). Ian has used the open question to move the discourse away from the scientific activity of observing the snails to his everyday activity of reminding us all that he has been to Portugal for his holiday! I am surprised by his answer and use a closed subject-centred question to confirm that I have heard him correctly (line 8:16). Instead of a single word answer, which might be expected from a closed question, he gives a detailed response in which he provides more information: the snails are at the Port, they are in the sea, and Ian “always sees them” (line 8:19). As I know nothing about sea snails in Portugal, I use a closed subject-centred question to confirm that Ian is talking about sea snails (line 8:24) and Ian confirms this so there is a role reversal here, as Ian becomes ‘the expert’ in the discourse genre.

In both of these examples, the open questioning is unsuccessful from the teacher’s point of view because it has not generated a dialogue which is scientifically productive.

In the Reception Class

This next transcription is from a lesson with eighteen five-year-old children. This part of the lesson introduces the children to the concept of snail trails in preparation for a minibeast hunt later that morning (see Figure 3). There are no snails present during this introductory part of the lesson.

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses

8:00 Teacher On Friday when the Eighteen Closed question C1: children came out of the children are the statement has been classroom they saw a big seated on the changed into a closed fat white strip outside the carpet in front person-centred door, didn’t you, and you of the teacher. question by the tag said, “Ahh, it’s a snail “didn’t you?”

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses trail”? 8:13 Children YES. Reply R1 to C1: confirms what the teacher has said. 8:14 Teacher I think they would have to The teacher The teacher is thinking be enormous snails if uses her hands out loud. Requires no they could trail like that. to convey the response from the idea of an children. enormous snail. 8:18 Amy It was dripping some milk. Amy gives away the punch line. 8:20 Teacher It’s from the milk, isn’t it? C2: the teacher It’s dripped down from the rephrases Amy’s bag when it’s gone out to comment and adds the the rubbish. tag “isn’t it?” to change it into a closed subject-centred question. 8:27 Children Yes. R2 to C2: confirms what the teacher has said. 8:29 Teacher How would you describe a O1: receives no snail trail? (2.2) What do response after a ‘wait- they look like? (2.0) What time’ of 2.2s. colour do they look like? O2: receives no response after a ‘wait- time’ of 2.0s. O3: specifically asks for the colour of the snail trails (implied from O1). 8:37 Stephen They’re black. R3 to O3. 8:39 Teacher Black? C3: suggests that R3 was not the expected answer. 8:40 Ollie Brown. (whispered) R4 to O3: but whispered - Ollie seems uncertain. 8:41 Courtney Brown and white. R5 to O3. 8:42 Teacher Yes, I [suppose…] Feedback to R5. 8:43 Ollie [Brown] Reply R6 to O3 (same response as R4 but this time more certain). 8:44 Teacher  Brown? She looks C4: suggests that R6 puzzled. (and R4) was not the expected answer. 8:45 Ollie Yes. R7 to C4. 8:46 Teacher They’re normally like C5: the teacher gives silver, aren’t they? them the answer and Trails’re shiny. adds the tag “isn’t it?” to change it into a

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses closed subject-centred question. 8:50 Amy They’re normally shiny New comment: white. connects shiny with white. Science: accurate description. 8:52 Teacher Shiny [white.] Feedback. 8:53 Stephen [And] slippery. New comment: connects slippery with shiny with white: science. Science: relevant property of snail trails. 8:54 Teacher Are they slippery? C6: elicits children’s views on whether snail trails are slippery. 8:56 Courtney Yeh, and it’s like and it’s R8 to C6: confirms that like glitter. snail trails are slippery and provides additional information. 8:58 Teacher Like glitter, yes, you’re Feedback to R8. quite right.

Figure 3: Snail trails outside the reception class

In this first example, having reminded the children about the milk which they had mistaken for a snail trail, the teacher continues by asking the children to describe a snail trail using an open person-centred question and then an open subject-centred question. The teacher waited 2.2 and 2.0 seconds respectively (line 8:29) for the children to respond to her questions but there was no response to either. The teacher then asked a further open subject-centred question, “What colour do they look like?” (line 8:29). This time the children had a clue in the word ‘colour’ and the sequence of open questions became generative. The children were able to answer but with their responses better describing a snail than a snail trail: black (line 8.37), brown (line 8:40), brown and white (line 8:41) and finally brown again (line 8:43). The teacher’s surprise at these answers was clear from her high-pitched repetition of the children’s responses (lines 8:39 and 8:44).

From the children’s point of view, it is not surprising that they were confused. Eight seconds elapsed between the teacher starting her question about the features of snail trails and her then identifying colour as a relevant feature. This may have been suitable for older children but these four and five-year-olds lacked the attention span to remember that they were required to give the colour of snail trails. It would seem that the children were engaging in the cultural practice of science by identifying features of living things (taken from the Early Learning Goals) albeit not the precise information that was requested. They seem to have remembered the context of snails since they were providing appropriate snail colours – nothing too strange like red, green or blue!

In the second example, the teacher gave the children a ‘clue’ by telling the children that they are “normally like silver” and, by adding the tag “aren’t they?”, changed her statement into a closed subject-centred question (line 8:46). Apparently as an afterthought, she reminded the children that she wanted them to tell her the colour of trails. Amy then disagreed with the teacher saying that, “They’re normally shiny white.” (line 8:50). The teacher repeated Amy’s description and then Stephen added that they are “slippery” (line 8:53). The teacher queried this using a closed subject- centred question and Courtney responded adding that the trails are “like glitter” (line 8:56). The closed question (line 8:46) had therefore given the children sufficient clues about the context for them to be able to provide three appropriate descriptions: white, slippery and like glitter (lines 8:50, 8:53 and 8:56 respectively). All these children were again engaging in the cultural practice of science by identifying the features of living things (taken from the Early Learning Goals).

In the first of these examples, although the sequence of open questions proved generative, the context of ‘snail trails’ was not implicit and this led to unexpected answers. In the second example this missing contextual information was provided by the teacher and the following closed questions encourage the children to develop a detailed description of the trails – shiny white, slippery and like glitter - which show that the children are engaging in the cultural practices of science as specified in the ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’.

In the Year 1 Class

The final transcription is from a lesson with twenty-two six-year-old children. These children are in Key Stage 1 and the teacher has to follow the National Curriculum for England (1999). The children therefore have to be gradually introduced to Scientific Enquiry (Sc1) which includes investigative skills alongside the content aspects of science: Life Processes and Living Things (Sc2); Materials and their Properties (Sc3); and Physical Processes (Sc4).

The teacher had planned to take the children on a minibeast hunt at the end of the summer term but, because the weather was so unpredictable, she had brought some snails into the classroom for the children to observe (see Figure 4). The teacher is setting up an investigation to discover what snails like to drink and her attention is focused on the placement of the dishes of orange juice, milk and water. The children are seated on the floor in a large circle around six snails which have been placed on an area covered with newspaper.

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses 16:12 Jane He’s on [the bowl.] The snail is on Jane expresses concern the edge of the about the snail. dish of water 16:13 Michael [He’s smelling] the Michael gives water. scientific interpretation. 16:14 Teacher Water has a smell, does it? Closed question C1: the teacher makes a

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses statement and adds the tag “does it?” to change it into a closed subject-centred question. Science: is the teacher asking if humans or snails can smell water? 16:16 Max Ye[s] Reply R1 to C1. Science: correct answer if the question referred to snails. 16:17 Children [NO] R2 to C1. Science: correct answer if the question referred to humans. 16:18 Teacher No. Does orange juice Feedback (incorrect). have a smell? C2. 16:20 Children YES. R3 to C2. 16:21 Teacher Does milk have a smell? C3. 16:23 Children YES R4 to C3. 16:24 Jane That one’s in the dish The snail is in Jane again expresses the water concern about the snail. 16:26 Sally We’ll have to get him out. Sally’s solution. 16:28 Josh He might be going Josh’s interpretation. swimming. Science: incorrect. 16:30 Teacher Do you think that’s going The teacher has C4: the children are to work? Now, what do placed the three given no chance to you think we might need to dishes around answer. do? (1.5) the newspaper Open question O1. on the floor 16:35 Jane We need to get him out. Jane is quite Jane again expresses agitated concern about the snail. 16:37 Teacher Pardon? O2: a ‘real’ question? 16:39 Michael We need to make R5 to O2. something to get him out. Science: a solution to the snail’s predicament. 16:41 Teacher Make something. (2.0) Put Repeat’s Michael’s your hand up if you’ve got idea – seems unaware an idea because I don’t of the children’s know that the snails are concerns. The teacher going to even notice the reminds the children of dishes. What do you think? the Amy? cultural practices of the classroom. O3. 16:49 Amy Put them near it. R6 to O3. 16:51 Teacher Put what near it, Amy? O4.

reflections on the min:s speaker transcription observations quality of questions and responses 16:52 Amy The snails near [it.] R7 to O4. 16:53 Max [No] put the R8 to O4. [dishes…] 16:54 Teacher [Shall] I put the dishes near The teacher C5. [the…?] moves one of the dishes 16: 56 Max [Why] don’t you put R9 to C5 (child’s [them…?] question goes unanswered). 16:57 Sally [That] one’s gone in… Sally points to Sally expresses [he’s gone in.] the snail which concern about the has gone back snail. completely inside its shell 16:59 Josh [Move them] while they go Josh’s solution. back in. Science: move the snails while they are inside their shells. 17:02 Teacher Move what while they go C6: a second ‘real’ back in? question. 17:04 Josh While they go back in R10 to C6: does not because they might be answer the question. scared. Science: egocentric – applying own feelings to the snail. 17:06 Teacher The snails might be scared? The teacher C7: a third ‘real’ Shall I put them nearer moves another question but the here? I don’t know because of the dishes teacher fails to give the I’ve never done this before. children time to I don’t know [what’ll answer. happen.] C8: again the children are given no time to answer. 17:14 Max […because] it’s an He means ‘investigan’. investigation.

Figure 4: SOS - Save our snail!

In this first example, Jane voices her concern about the snail (line 16:24) and then Sally and Josh add their concerns for the snail’s predicament (lines 16:26 and 16:28). The teacher does not acknowledge their anxiety and asks a closed person-centred question but immediately rewords it as an open person-centred question (line 16:30) but this leads to confusion. After a ‘wait-time’ of one-an-a-half seconds and, with no other suggestions from her classmates, Jane responds to the teacher’s question, “Now, what do you think we might need to do?” with “We need to get him out”. The teacher says, “Pardon?” (line 16:37) which is a ‘real’ question because she does not understand Jane’s response. Michael then suggests that they should make something to help the snail (line 16:39). This seems to confuse the teacher still further, because she repeats “make something”.

The children’s responses to the teacher’s first two open questions have therefore confused her. She must have thought that the context for her first question was implicit – she wanted the children’s ideas about setting up the investigation. Jane, however, has seen it as an invitation to express her concerns about the snail. Although not what the teacher expected, nevertheless the children’s answers do show that they are engaging in the cultural practices of science since they are concerned about the safety and welfare of the snails (taken from Key stage 1 of the National Curriculum).

In this second example, the teacher takes control of the situation by reminding the children of one of the cultural practices of the classroom: raising their hands if they have any ideas. She then restates the problem about the placement of the dishes and asks Amy for her suggestions using an open person-centred question (line 16:41). This time there are sufficient context clues for Amy to be able to make a suggestion and, when the teacher asks for clarification, using an open subject-centred question, Amy suggests putting the snails near the dishes (lines 16:49, 16:51 and 16:52 respectively). Max then responds to a closed subject-centred question by suggesting that the dishes are moved rather than the snails (lines 16:53 and 16:56). The children are therefore engaging in the cultural practices of science since they know that the snails need to drink and are thinking about the placement of the dishes prior to the investigation (taken from Key stage 1 of the National Curriculum).

With this group of Year 1 children, the open questions in the first example generate answers, which show that the children are engaging in the cultural practices of science, but are not what the teacher expected. Although the teacher believed that the context was implicit – they were setting up an investigation - there were no context clues provided in the questions and therefore the children responded with their foremost concerns. By contrast, in the second example, the teacher provides the context before asking her open questions and consequently the children are able to contribute to the planning of the investigation.

Conclusion

As stated previously, this research is ongoing and my findings are not conclusive.

From the survey data, it appears that as the age of the children increases so does the number of open questions asked by the teachers. For each of the three age groups, the survey data showed that more open questions are asked in science than in literacy. The survey further reveals that the use of person-centred questions increases only slightly with the increasing age of the children and they are used slightly more frequently in science than in literacy.

The extracts from the case studies provide insights into the children’s responses to various questioning strategies. For all three age groups the analysis suggests that there are sometimes insufficient context clues in open questions for these young children to be able to provide a suitable answer. In many cases the open questions seem unable to scaffold the children’s thinking which results in the children not making connections with their own and their peers’ ideas. By the end of Year 1 the

- 21 - Diane Harris University of Manchester children seem better able to answer open questions although, as can be clearly seen in the extract, misinterpretations of the context do still occur.

My interpretation of my preliminary findings is that there is a variety in the quality of the responses arising from different types of questions. It seems that context might be decisive in determining whether open and closed questions are scientifically productive. Consequently, further analysis of how contextual factors affect children’s interpretations of open and closed questions will be undertaken.

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