Questioning: The Inquiry Driver
The types of questions you ask steers your exploration along one pathway or another. There are many different ways to classify questions. In Chapter Two of the book, Pathways for Inquiry, several question categories are presented and explained. Those categories are listed below. The words in black type are those used as a short-hand for classifying questions in examples of student inquiry papers that you can access at this Web site.
Beginning Questions
Fact Seeking Questions
Probing Questions
Questions That Search for Interpretations or Explanations
Questions That Search for Analogies
Questions Searching for Comparisons/Contrasts
Questions Searching for Categories, Matching ideas, Groups of Ideas,
Classifications, or Attributes a Subject Shares With Others
Questions Using Formal Analogies
Questions Testing Applications
Questions That Study Anomalies or Unexpected Events and Discrepancies
Questions Formed From Evaluative Thoughts About the Topic Under Study
Questions Which State Hunches and Hypotheses
Questions Exploring Hunches/Anticipating Possibilities
Questions Testing How Factors Influence One Another/Proposing Interactions Among Variables
Questions Stating Cause-Effect Hypotheses
Questions must be understood in context. A question’s context determines its purpose and, therefore, its type. Sometimes, a question serves several purposes and may be categorized in more than one way. Some questions are stated in interrogative form. Others may be implied in statements that refer to something wondered about, raise an issue, or state a hypothetical relationship.
Rosemary El Ammari completed An Inquiry Project About Johnny Tudyk in May 2000. Her exemplary paper won a 2000 Martinello Prize for Inquiry. The version of the paper found here categorizes the questions Rosemary recorded in the narrative report of her inquiry. Her inquiry paper does not report all the questions she may have posed during her study. Rosemary used many, but not all, of the categories of questions listed above. When you read Rosemary’s paper you’ll find parenthetical notations that categorize each question by type. Some of the questions are clearly written in interrogative form. Others are implied by their contexts of wonderment, discussion of unresolved issues, or hypothetical musings. Using the given categories for question types, read the El Ammari paper to see if your identifications and classifications of her questions match those that are noted.
The questions in Lorena Huerta's Inquiry Paper, The Impact of The Great Depression and WWII on My Grandfather, were coded also. You can apply the given categories for question types to her questions.
