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Support units: Professional practice
Illustration 1: Questioning
Types of questions
The types of questions used will stimulate students to think and respond in different ways. Details
about types of questions and examples are provided below. They are listed in order from the more
'closed' questions that involve recall, to the higher order questions that involve evaluation and
problem solving.
Question type
Example
Rhetorical question: used to emphasise or
dramatise a point rather than to elicit an
answer
It takes 1,300 cubic metres of water on
average to produce one tonne of wheat. Or
does it?
Data recall question: requires factual
recall; a closed or skinny question; sets up
the classic guessing game in classroom
interaction
What are Australia’s major mineral exports?
Naming question: requires factual recall; a
closed or skinny question; little development
of thinking processes, the teacher as
gatekeeper is restricting responses
What do we call the process when two pieces
of a tectonic plate come together and push
against each other to form a bulge in the
earth’s surface?
Observation question: requires description
but there is no attempt at explanation; there
is scope to view the question as convergent
because it may require students to bring
concepts together to obtain a rich answer;
an inquiry question that may lead to further
investigation
What happened to the western districts of
NSW after the invasion of woody weeds?
Pseudo question: a question constructed
to lead to a single response; a leading
question that suggests the answer; a richer
follow up question might ask students to
explain the process in their own words or
draw a diagram of the process
Is this an example of chain migration to
Australia?
Speculative question: a hypothetical
inquiry; an open-ended question with many
acceptable answers; a divergent question
Why is water difficult to manage in Western
Asia?
