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National Art Education Association Art Teacher Classroom Questioning Author(s): Robert D. Clements Source: Art Education, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Apr., 1965), pp. 16-18 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190691 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 19:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:16:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Art Teacher Classroom Questioning

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Page 1: Art Teacher Classroom Questioning

National Art Education Association

Art Teacher Classroom QuestioningAuthor(s): Robert D. ClementsSource: Art Education, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Apr., 1965), pp. 16-18Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190691 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 19:16

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

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Page 2: Art Teacher Classroom Questioning

AR T TEA CHER CLASSR QOM QUESTIONING

Another enlargement of a fossil (Bryozoa) of minute marine life

(Pachydictya Elegans). Courtesy the Smithsonian Institution.

questions heighten the experience of artistic cre- ativity.

The directive question types (suggestion-order, "Why don't you just turn it over?"; rule, "Do you remember what we can do with these?"; and OK, "You don't want to get it on yourself if you can help it, do you, Debby?") made up only 1% of the total. This implies that first grade art teach- ers allow or encourage freedom and individual creativity in their pupils' work.

The absence of student questions (1/10 of 1%) may be due to the children's timidity. The infrequency of judgment questions, "Isn't that a beautiful color?" (only 4% compared to seventh grade's 36%), indicates that teachers are not trying to develop critical evaluative skills at this level.

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Page 3: Art Teacher Classroom Questioning

ROBERT D. CLEMENTS

THIS INVESTIGATION EXAMINES the ques- tioning process used by art teachers at the first grade, seventh grade, and college level. It builds on a previous study by the author,' which utilized nine question types. Ten question types were used in this study: 1. experience, 2. judgment, 3. in- tent, 4. beginning, 5. identification, 6. o.k., 7. process recall, 8. suggestion order, 9. rule, and 10. student questions.

The objectives of the present study were con- cerned with determining how questioning changes from level to level, teacher to teacher, and lesson to lesson, and the length of answer for each question type.

Forty art class sessions, two lessons for each of 20 teachers, were recorded and transcribed. Teachers were selected from the Art and Art Education Departments at Penn State and sur- rounding school districts. From the total of over 2300 questions recorded, the frequencies of each question type were compiled. The questioning in all lessons over and under 50 minutes duration was prorated to a standard 50-minute class length.

The most striking finding of the study was that over half of the art teachers' questions received answers of one second or less duration. One- fourth of the questions received no answer, two- thirds received answers under two seconds, and nine-tenths received answers under four seconds. The answer length did not vary much from level to level, although college students gave slightly longer answers. The shortness of the pupil's an- swers and the virtual absence of time left for reply casts considerable doubt on the art teacher's valuing of pupil opinion.

In the typical art class, very little time is given for the pupils to answer the teacher's questions. Although 59 questions were asked in the average class period, there was less than five seconds of pausing and waiting for an answer.

Five per cent of the answers were interrupted by the teacher. Seventh grade teachers inter- rupted least frequently, and college teachers in- terrupted most frequently.

First grade teachers asked the most questions; 16 their mean for a 50-minute period was 84 com-

pared to 50 for the other two groups. In total amount of questioning, teachers dif-

fered greatly; in the 50-minute period the range was from 10 to 185.

Teachers within each level use somewhat sim- ilar types of questioning; chi square analysis showed that, disregarding atypical teachers, teach- ers at two out of the three instructional levels did not differ significantly on six out of eight question types. In brief, though a few individual teachers differed greatly from the average of their level, for the most part, there was similarity.

When the two lessons of each teacher were compared, some similarity was evidenced in amount of question types asked. Different lessons recorded in different classes and two weeks apart did not differ significantly for two-thirds of the teachers. Individual first grade teachers differed from lesson to lesson in their questioning more than seventh grade or college teachers. First Grade-Teacher questioning in the first grade was strikingly characterized by the great amount of experience questions. Fifty per cent of all questions asked were experience questions at this level. These appeared to have been asked for three purposes: (1) to increase the child's awareness of his environment. "Where do you suppose those horses were?" "What kind of plants?" "What kind of day is it?" (2) To help the child to see himself in relation to others, and to fill the page: "Did anyone else help you?" and (3) To enlarge the child's concept of the human figure: "Is she picking flowers?"

It is possible that the great frequency of ex- perience questions can be attributed somewhat to the influence of Viktor Lowenfeld, who wrote, "Every stimulation should contain first the 'where and when,' second the 'what,' and third the 'how'."2

More beginning and intent questions, "Tell me about it?" and "What are you going to do?", were asked in the first grade than in the other levels. Perhaps this also relates to the great amount of experience questioning; just as experi- ence questions heighten the child's sense of him- self and his environment, beginning and intent

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Page 4: Art Teacher Classroom Questioning

Seventh Grade-Seventh grade questioning was characterized by the predominance of judgment questions, "How many of your ((perspective) houses look right?"; "In terms of concave and convex shapes, how would you explain a tree?"; "Why do you need a wall there?" This implies that teachers at this level are trying to develop critical aesthetic and intellectual awareness.

Only 2% of the questioning was beginning questioning (contrasted to first grade's 13% and college's 10%). This could be because the ex- uberance of the class did not permit the teacher to become involved with individuals. If this was so, one would expect more of their teaching (as measured by number of questions) to take place in the motivation period. Since 36% of the sev- enth grade questioning (contrasted to first grade's 26% and college's 4%) occurred in the motiva- tion, the possible explanation of class control was supported.

Only 11% of the seventh grade questioning was experience questions, a marked decrease from the first grade's 50%. Experience questions took forms such as, "How many heads high is Stan- ley?" and "What's the main ingredient of a mouse? Is he square?" Many more directive questions were asked than in the first grade (14% vs. 1/10 of 1%). Suggestion-order questions took forms like, "Maybe we could do X, huh?"; rule questions, "For complements, how many hues could we have?"; and OK questions, "Do you see?" College-Questioning at the college level also showed judgment questions to be most frequent (24%). "Mary, how do you like it? Why?"; "Do you feel you're capturing what you want?"; "Do you think you're making true statements?"; "Did you ruin it?" In many of the judgment questions such as the following examples the teacher does not so much ask for the student's judgment, as give his own. "Can you see the way the neck is exaggerated?"; "Why does that window sill have to wind up right on her shoulder?" The direc- tive question types were next most common (17%). This indicates that college teachers were imparting techniques and goals to their students rather than encouraging the students to find their own through experience and intent questions. Suggestion-order questions took forms like, "Why don't you just take that part out?"; OK questions took forms such as, "See, what I'd like this to be like is-, do you see what I mean?" The greater frequency of opinions and orders which preceded and followed college questioning supports this view, as does the fact that college teachers asked the least amount of experience and intent questions (8%, 8%). Even the ex- perience questions, "I don't see any blue, do

18 you?"; and the intent questions, "What would

happen if some of this were darker?", were rather directive.

College teachers gave many opinions and or- ders while first grade teachers gave very few. For college teachers, opinions and orders were the two categories which most often preceded and followed questioning. This represents a fine arts or master-apprentice type of teaching, where- by the teacher gives his opinion to the pupils and tells them how to change their work. For first grade teachers, no orders were given, and only negligible amounts of opinions, unfavorable opin- ions, suggestions, and directive question types. This indicates that the first grade teachers were either non-directive or directive in subtle ways.

Certain questions and comments tended to precede other question types. At the first grade level, beginning and intent questions were fre- quently followed by experience questions. At the seventh grade level and even more so at the college level, the teachers' opinions frequently preceded and followed judgment questions.

Some question types clearly received longer answers than others. Beginning questions, "Tell me about it?" received the longest answers (8 seconds). Judgment questions, "Are you pleased with it?" received the second longest answers (4 seconds). The identification questions, "What's this supposed to be," 3 seconds; intent and ex- perience questions, 2 seconds. The directive ques- tion types (suggestion-order, "Why don't you do-?"; rule, "How do we do-?", and OK, "All right?"), which are in effect not so much ques- tions as directions, usually received no answer at all. This finding may be of value for the teacher leading motivation and evaluation discussions.

The investigation studied the questioning of art teachers in the classroom. It showed that teach- ers asked a question a minute, that they didn't pause to give the pupil a chance to think, and that over half the answers were one second or less in length. It showed a slight similarity in questioning among the teachers at each level, a wide range in total amount of questioning, and some similarity between a teacher's two lessons. It described how art teacher questioning differs at the first grade, seventh grade, and college in- structional levels.

Robert D. Clements3 is an Assistant Professor at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

1. Robert D. Clements, "Art Student-Teacher Ques- tioning, "Studies in Art Education, Vol. 6, No. 1, Autumn 1964, 14-19.

2. Viktor Lowenfeld. Creative and Mental Growth. MacMillan, 3rd ed., p. 118.

3. Robert D. Clements, "Question Types, Patterns, and Sequences Used by Art Teachers in the Class- room," Cooperative Research Project No. S-161, The Pennsylvania State University, 1964.

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