Proceedings of the 7th World Conference on Research in Teaching and Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Why Do You Think So – Questioning Techniques in A Group-Discussion Scaffolding Critical Thinking and Reasoning
Egle Säre
ABSTRACT:
Discussion and questioning techniques are effective tools to supprort critical thinking and reasoning skills, but there is often inconsistent and unconscious implementation. The aim of this study was to describe scaffolding of pre-schoolers critical thinking and reasoning using different questioning techniques during group-discussion. The data was collected during 8 months from philosophical group-discussions engaged five- to six-years-old children with 20 observations from five groups. Transcripts from group-discussions were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings showed that the functions of discussion leader´s questions were different and varied mainly depending on the children´s responses and behavior. Different questioning techniques used by discussion leader are described in results. The emerged understanding of questioning techniques is useful for identifying how teachers can scaffold children to reason and think critically.
keywords: preschool, reasoning, group-discussion, the function of questions, questioning techniques