Types of Questions

As teachers, we ask questions with our students all the time. Typically, these questions are methods to reinforce information that has been taught, or to determine the background knowledge of students.

However, there are ways to ask questions that require higher level thinking skills, and to determine attitudes and opinions of students. Bloom's Taxonomy shows the different levels of thinking skills that students often use, with knowledge and comprehension the most basic, and evaluation and synthesis the most sophisticated. Look at the following website to learn more about Bloom's Taxonomy:

Definitions and Examples of Bloom's Taxonomy

This site provides action words used when asking questions at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy

Next, answer the following questions and determine what level of Bloom's Taxonomy students are using to answer each question:

Another way to ask questions is to determine the opinions of your audience. This is helpful to gain information about the attitudes of participants. These types of questions are known as the LIKERT SCALE. The official definition is as follows: A rating scale designed to measure user attitudes or reactions by quantifying subjective information. Participants indicate where along a continuum their attitude or reaction resides. To see examples of Likert Scale responses, CLICK HERE.

There are LOTS of ways to frame a question to get students to use higher level thinking and gauge attitudes. Often times the best questions we ask students are the ones we can't answer ourselves. Sharing this sense of 'wonder' with students is at the heart of good teaching. To learn more about how to ask good questions, visit Jamie McKenzie's site, "The Question Mark" and be sure to read some of the "Questioning Articles."

Now that you have some background on what kinds of questions to ask, it's time to figure out what to DO with this information. Go to the ASSESSMENT section to learn more about the types of assessment.