A Study On Quality Of University Teachers’Classroom Questioning

Teachers’ classroom questioning is a key factor affecting teaching quality. The quality of classroom questioning determines validity of classroom teaching. As regarded as the "life of teaching" by Japanese educationist Saito Kihiro, questioning is a way of interaction between teachers and students in teaching process, and is a crucial teaching skill. Teachers’ classroom questioning has very important for both students and teachers. It not only attracts students’ attention and interests and guides their active thinking but also enables teachers to know about students’ acquired knowledge through their responses and to help them have comprehensive mastery and deep understanding.Teaching reform in higher educational institutions is the kernel part of higher education and teaching quality is the centre of higher education. Quality of teachers’ questioning is one of crucial factors determining teaching quality. In college classroom teaching, the phenomenon occurs occasionally that teachers either occupy the overall time to lecture without any questions for students or employ a question to adjust class atmosphere without touching substantial issues. Therefore, poor quality of teachers’ questioning and its underachieved values result from alienation of questioning in college teaching, improperly question designing, unbalanced question types, teachers’ ignorance of questioning and so on.Based on the investigation of teachers’ questioning in college teaching, the present study conducts a deep analysis of quality of college teachers’ questioning in classroom teaching by means of theoretical discussion and empirical study. The paper, grounding on regulating and improving college teachers’ questioning, aims to improve quality of teachers’ questioning and classroom teaching and provide references for college teachers in classroom teaching practice.The thesis mainly employs interview method, class observation and questionnaire survey. On the basis of theory established, the research puts forward to the five first-level norms on quality of teachers’questioning:Difficulty, Validity, Span, Gradient and Moderation, each of which has the ten second-level norms. According to norm observation scale and its analysis of reliability and validity, the result is in accordance with the reliability and validity in statistical sense. By observing the forty-two classes from a university in Chongqing City, it concludes:(1) In the forty-two classes, teachers raise118questions in total with2.81questions per class. From the averaged numbers of questions in every class, the rank of each major is observed in the follows:engineering major class> science class> liberal arts class (">" refers to "outweigh").(2) The overall level of quality of college teachers’questioning tends to be average with the mean value3.60; the quality of teachers’questioning from the three majors has similar in mean value. It is observed that the rank of each major follows:liberal arts class> engineering major class> science class (">" refers to "outweigh").(3) As far as variables analysis of each dimension of the three majors is concerned, Difficulty deserves the highest mean value and Span deserves the lowest one in the first-dimension; Appropriate Time renders the highest mean value and Interdisciplinary Knowledge renders the lowest one in the second-dimension. In the first-dimension, differences of Difficulty and Span between the science major and the engineering major are significant; the science major outweighs the engineering major. Differences of Difficulty and Span between the science major and the liberal arts major are not notably significant; the science major outweighs the liberal arts major. However, there is no difference of Difficulty and Span between the engineering major and the liberal arts major. In the second-dimension, differences of Disciplinary Knowledge exist between the science major and the engineering major; differences of Teaching Objectives, Level of Students and Disciplinary Knowledge exist between the science major and the liberal arts major; differences of Disciplinary Knowledge only exist between the engineering major and the liberal arts major.(4) With respect to question types, the largest proportion is Knowledge Type with one half of136questions. The ratio of Understanding Type is25percent, Analytic Type11percent, Comprehensive Type8.8percent, Application-oriented Type7.4percent and Appraisal Type5.9percent. The questionnaire survey is conducted among112teachers and167students from the university. The research involves in various representative disciplinary, such as liberal arts, science, engineer, economics, management, education, etc. Three findings are observed from this research:(1) most teachers and students are aware of necessity of questioning. The97.4percent of teachers and89.8percent of students agree that three functions of teachers’questioning in classroom teaching are instruction to thinking, interaction and knowing about students’mastery of knowledge;(2) functions of questioning, e.g. drawing teachers’attention and helping to organize teaching, are relatively attached little emphasis;(3) being compatible with observations, Stimulating Thinking ranks the first and Interdisciplinary Knowledge the last among the ten norms measuring quality of questioning in classroom teaching.Significance of the research is the twofold:theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, it deepens researches on questioning in the field of higher education and lays theoretical foundation for the study of quality of questioning. Practically, it can be used for reference in improving quality of teachers’questioning in classroom teaching.Innovation of the thesis is concluded in the following:(1) on the basis of previous studies, the paper provides a criterion for the study on questioning quality by finishing and revising Quality Indexes for College Teachers’Questioning in Classroom;(2) the paper has made Observation Scale of College Teachers’Questioning in Classroom with proper reliability and validity and applies it to investigation of teachers’questioning in classroom teaching.