Examining Preservice Teachers’ Questioning and Feedback

This study examined the questioning styles of preservice teachers along with the frequency and types of feedback provided according to students’ responses. This was a pre-experimental design study with a one-group pre-post-test design. The questioning ways of 13 preservice teachers who taught in two public primary schools in Ankara, Turkey was investigated. The study data were obtained by the video recording of 26 hours of classroom instruction. Moreover, chi-square analysis was conducted to determine relationships between wait time, cognitive level and type of question. According to the results, it was determined that preservice teachers, both before and after training, preferred to use redirecting questions more frequently than creating new questions. It was also observed that preservice teachers frequently asked questions which measured lower level cognitive competencies and that there was an increase for all types of response feedback following the training. However, there was no relationship found between the types of feedback provided and the cognitive levels of the questions asked. The possible reasons for these results might be over-crowded classrooms, focusing on grammar instruction more than reading and writing, and/or inexperience among the preservice teachers to deliver lessons that include high quality questioning and effective feedback.